Embedded Files
The times cry for diversion. I find mine in humor. This page is reserved for poems that might provide a giggle, even a sardonic chortle in some cases. So far nine reside here.
Enthusiasms
Herded
Connection Conundrum
Pedicure
From Hawaii
A Women's Club Board Meeting Skeptic
The Unbearable Heaviness of Being
At A Women's Club Board Meeting
Into Lay's
ENTHUSIASMS
“I want you to like what I like,”
some say with authentic delight,
pushing their latest loves at me,
their movies, their Web, books, TV.
Geysers erupting elation,
spewing one-way conversation
on Gaga, opera, Oprah,
Schopenhauer, Cher, or Chopra,
they need me to join in their glee
when all that I want is to flee.
(honorable mention, 86th Annual Poets' Dinner, 2012, Humor category)
HERDED
On either side of where I’ll sit they sneeze.
Her closed eyes drip, and his fist grips a tissue.
Our herd is filling every row. We’re squeezed.
I board because, dear daughter, I have missed you.
Too soon stuffed nose, sore throat confirm
how easily one’s made infirm.
I strain for Kleenex from my purse,
breathe airplane air that’s virus cursed.
Upgraded to a double cold,
if I could stand, I’d totter.
Instead I nap, dream cow-chute trap
and poking by a prodder
until I’m jumping past the moon,
escaping threats of slaughter.
I wake, deplane, know I’m to blame
if I infect my daughter
but won’t explain unless she asks
about the gifts I’ve brought her.
(honorable mention, 92nd Annual Ina Coolbrith Circle Poetry Banquet, 2011, Humor category)
CONNECTION CONUNDRUM
If some things I do
are important to you
and I do them well,
and if you do some things well
that I couldn't improve,
or more likely,
you don’t do
something I dislike,
which is often even better –
and if we warm to each other’s looks
and share a taste in books,
we might have a beginning,
which is why I find it aggravating
that when deficits accrue,
whether visual, vehicular, or auricular,
that as we become pricklier and wrinklier,
we get so damnably particular.
(honorable mention at the 85th Annual Poets' Dinner in March 2011)
PEDICURE
When others talk about t'ai chi
or illustrate a yoga pose,
I prove my flexibility.
(Each one of us is wearing clothes.)
I rotate spine and swivel hips
to bring a foot up to my lips,
then tell them how to soak then lift
their own ten toes. I see them wince
then hear them plead, "We haven't asked
for hints on how you save your cash."
"I bite my toenails," I wink back.
"My dental bills go in the trash."
("Pedicure" received an Honorable Mention at the 91st Ina Coolbrith Circle Banquet, November 6, 2010, and was published in the December 2010 Crockett Signal)
This anecdote of a 'poem' actually happened....
FROM HAWAII
“You’re from Hawaii,”
he says. “How did you get there?”
“My dad and his dad
were born there,” I reply.
“And you went to the same
high school as Barack Obama?”
“Yes,” I say, “but that was
years before Obama was born.”
He looks at me quizzically
and pauses a moment
before stating as a matter of fact,
“You must be Muslim then.”
Featured reader Janet Wondra pulled this poem from the Po-Bowl at the 3/28/10 Ina Coolbrith Circle after the read-around, entitling it to reside at coolpoetry.org -- my second inspired by a women's club board meeting comment:
A Women's Club Board Meeting Skeptic
It’s our building manager’s turn to speak.
Angela happily reports that she and her husband
installed a motion sensor light near the entry.
Sensing her entry, Judy, the corresponding
secretary, interjects, “Oh, good! Now,
when they break in, they'll be able to see.”
This poem appeared in the January 2021 Crockett Signal, Issue 344.
THE UNBEARABLE HEAVINESS OF BEING
(with a nod to Milan Kundera for this title)
I showered off dirt and sweat,
applied no lotions or creams,
filed my fingernails short,
removed their polish,
thought of shaving my head
but decided cutting an inch
was as far as I could go
before donning my flimsiest
outfit, slip-off sandals,
and heavy winter coat.
Ignoring the cold,
I wore no stockings or socks.
I'd skipped breakfast
and my usual coffee stop
and hoped I wouldn't faint
before my appointment
at two o'clock.
Once on the dreaded
device, I exhaled,
but that too failed.
Despite all preparations,
the doctor's scale
once again weighed heavy.
AT A WOMEN’S CLUB BOARD MEETING
“But I just sent her a get-well card,”
exclaimed the corresponding secretary
upon hearing that one of our members
had died two days earlier, unexpectedly.
“These things happen,” responded
the president. “I had a friend who kept complaining
to her husband that she wasn’t feeling well.
He told her to get over it.”
“Next thing we knew, she had died.”
“Oh, my,” came the chorus around the table,
and then, to my right I heard a member whisper,
“She sure showed him.”
(Published in Taproot & Aniseweed No. 33, April 2013 and the March 2021 Crockett Signal, Issue 346.)
INTO LAY'S
Classic Lay's potato chips
curl and fold themselves while frying,
getting ready for my hips.
Tongue applauds. They're satisfying.
Lip and tooth-crushed interaction,
crispy, salty, golden fat
zing me into stupefaction.
Losing all resolve, I snack
from the package 'til I clip it,
place it far from where I sit,
but get up, and dip into it.
When they’re gone is when I'll quit.
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