Author Archives: Paul Camarata

THE DROOLING MACHINE

By Posted in Word Doodles Galore Tagged , , , , , , 1 Comment

There’s a Drooling Machine at our house
They call it “The Baby Boy.”
It’s cuddly and cute and I squeeze it
Though Mom insists it’s not a toy.

It runs like a faucet that’s broken
Leaking everywhere all through the day
But when I grab a wrench to fix the Machine
Mom insists, “Put that away!”

She says, “The Boy’s doing exactly
What it should be at this stage!”
I say “Buyer Beware”’s a good lesson
For shoppers of every age

Lest they get stuck with a Drooling Machine
For which they must apologize
With some on-going lie there’s no way they believe, like,
“Isn’t he the cutest little guy?”

KNUCKLE CHATTER

By Posted in Word Doodles Galore Tagged , , , , , , , Leave a comment

My fuzzy gloves that are fingerless
Send me palms over knuckles with digital bliss
On the winter days I’m earwax picking,
Scratching backs, guitar licking,
Pinching jacks, popping pimples,
Cleaning braces, poking dimples,
Tying laces, tickling bellies,
Needle threading, tasting jellies,
Rabbit foot petting, booger flicking,
Yo-yo twirling, paper football kicking,
Portraying a Shadow-Squirrel, snatching a donut hole,
Lapping cookie dough trails from Mom’s mixing bowl.
But when it’s really cold outside and time to shovel snow,
Mittens that cover my fingers are what I wish I had in tow.

knuckles_edit

JANE CHANGER

By Posted in Word Doodles Galore Tagged , , , , , Leave a comment

There’s nothing in this world
more sweet than Sarah Jane –
except when she gets hangry,
then her sweet goes down the drain.

See, “Hanger” is an emptiness
bigger than a garage for a plane,
a vacuum in the stomach
that grumble rumbles to the brain.

And when hangriness descends
upon sweet Sarah Jane,
her sugar turns to salt –
and mountains of it, not a grain.

She snarls and barks
like an angry Great Dane,
fuses bulge in her neck
where normally there’d be veins.

But when again her belly’s full
she goes from hangry back to sane,
and to the world returns
sweet little Sarah Jane.

ROLLS OF DELIGHT

By Posted in Word Doodles Galore Tagged , , , , , 1 Comment

pt_edit

In the supermarket there is one aisle
That is my favorite by a mile.

It’s not where they sell sugary snacks,
Soda, cereal or have the toy racks.

It’s near the sponges, past the Kleenex,
A cottony wonder from floor to apex:

It’s Toilet Paper Mountain, in all its glory,
Beside Paper Towel Castle,
which everyone must see.

But for me, I’m afraid, seeing’s not enough.
I have to scale these towers of puff.

Mom and Dad don’t like when I climb,
They put me back in the cart every time.

Then I’m apart from my grocery store friends:
Paper Towel Castle and Toilet Paper Mountain.

And I must turn to plotting for the next time
That to those absorbent summits I can climb.

tp_edit

 

JOY OF X

By Posted in The Tweed Typewriter's Twisted Tour of Alphabetowne, Word Doodles Galore Tagged , , , , , , , Leave a comment

It marks the spot
From the last it is third
But for x-ray
It starts almost no words.

Expunges
Expires
Examines
Extolls

Elixir, a mixer
Ex post facto.

In both cases it looks the same
Like Cousin C
It’s a cross only not straight up
Like Cousin T.

Explaining
Exerting
Expatriating

Extant, exacting
Exasperating

There’s no alphabet king
No one “Letter Rex”
But in Alphabetowne
There’s no one quite like X

SELF PROPELLED

By Posted in Word Doodles Galore Tagged , , , , , 1 Comment

A balding billygoat
Bought a new billy-weave,
Now he’s happy as a lonely coral who joined a reef.

A homeless cuckoo
Asked for the time,
And found a roof in a clock that now he calls “mine.”

My hooks were a mess
Till I hung’em on a hook,
My nooks all misplaced, then I stored’em in a nook.

So asking and acting
Proves, as you can see:
“If it’s going to be, it’s up to me.”

selfpropelled_edit

ZIPPITY DO DOC

By Posted in Word Doodles Galore Tagged , , , , , , 1 Comment

There are dentists everywhere
But not the kind I’d like to be,
That’s the kind who earns a living
Mending broken zipper teeth.

‘Cause as far as I can tell
Right now there’s no doc you can see
Who can take a fly or jacket that
Won’t move and set it free.

So the Earth’s first zipper dentist
Is what I would like it to be:
The foremost expert on the planet’s
Mechanical metal teeth.

zipper_edit

EATEN UP INSIDE

By Posted in Word Doodles Galore Tagged , , , , , Leave a comment

The friendly Timmy Termite
has never been cool
in the eyes of the neighbors
or the children in school.

When they hear that name, ‘Termite,’
they wrinkle their noses,
when they see him they wilt
like ten year old roses.

Oh how sad it is
his mere hunger for wood
makes the entire world
judge someone no good.

The whole world but one:
a fish called Anchovy
who knows what its like
to never feel cozy

in the company of people
who don’t say it but think,
“Did he say his name is ‘Anchovy’?
Now I know what stinks!”

That’s why they each kinda’ get it,
This tiny fish and smaller bug,
Why the other is on
An endless quest for love.

FLIPPING FRIGHTENED

By Posted in Uncategorized Tagged , , , , , , , , 3 Comments

When I woke up this morning
The weather was hot.
But where were my flip-flops?
Did I know? I did not.

All through the long winter
All we wore was boots
Then suddenly the
Flipping trees had flopped fruit.

So in my bare feet
With nerves that were fraying
I searched for my flops
While I shoulda’ been playing.

Being flipflopless
Was terribly scary,
‘Till the moment I found’em –
That flipped on my merry.

‘Cause nothing says good times
Like flops on your feet
Not inside the house
But out on the warm street.

ED-ITATION

By Posted in Word Doodles Galore Tagged , , , , , , Leave a comment

“Ol’ Ed Reed starts with an Ed
And ends with an Ed….
Is that right, Fred?”
“That’s right,” said Fred.

“It’s why all his friends
Call him ‘Bookends’
As a nickname
Because his edges are the same.”

I asked him, “Ed
Whendja get it in yer head
Thatcha start with an Ed
And end with an Ed?”

He said, “’Twas plain to see
The first day I could read
The combo ‘E-D’
I had two of’em in me.”

“Well shucks, Golly!”
I said to Ed Reed,
“Lose that ‘R-E’
And you’ll be Tidy Ed Ed!”

He said, “No thank ye, sir,
I’d much prefer
To finish how I started:
Two ‘Eds’ by one ‘Re’ parted.”

SHORT STORY

By Posted in Word Doodles Galore Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Dad said,
“Summer’s out of mothballs, kids!”
We said,
“What does that even mean?”

He laughed,
“Go check out the clothesline!”
We did,
And this is what we seen:

A parade of tan,
red and seersucker,
Madras, orange,
navy and plaid.

We can’t ever recall
a sign of summer
That’s made us kids
feel so sad.

shorts_editMAN O’WARDROBE

Hhhooray!

By Posted in The Tweed Typewriter's Twisted Tour of Alphabetowne, Word Doodles Galore Tagged , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

H is a letter that sounds like a word
spelled a-t-c-h-e,
that looks like one rung on the alphabet ladder
that stretches from A to Z.

H can give a lift
even when h is small,
and resembles
a ladderback chair,

So when H appears
Instead of “Ho-hum,”
Think,
“A humble helping hero is here!”

REPEAT: THE QUESTION

By Posted in Word Doodles Galore Tagged , , , , , 1 Comment

Would Wood
Rob rob
chilly chili
in Inn
Four ‘fore
dear deer
paws’ pause
cause caws
cliques clicks
where ware
bare bear
steer steer
hare hair
to two
bored Board
Principals principles?

Or, 

Might that stiff, Bob, steal frosty meat stew while attending Hotel Quattro before the ceased moving of precious hart feet prompts rhythmic ticking noise from crow-based social clubs in the same vicinity that surly, difficult longhorns short on merchandise guide rabbit fur in the direction of a couple disinterested governing school administrators fundamental beliefs?

repeat_notes_photo

Making of THE REDUN DANCE – Notes from the first draft, written March 8, 2012 – more than a year before any of this here tweed saw the light of day.  (Photo: PaC)

BELLY, BELLY

By Posted in Word Doodles Galore Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Leave a comment

Dad had many sayings:
By George!
By Jove!
Great Scott!
and
No matter what you think,
There is a lid for every pot!

But we knew we’d really boiled
His patience into jelly
When with wide eyes he whispered,
By Roosevelt’s horse’s belly!

We don’t know where it came from
We don’t know what it meant
Except it was time for our
Misbehaving to relent.

T.R., I bet, would dig the line
Most likely, too, his horse.
His horse’s belly would think it
Poetry, of course

Even better than the classic
One-worder of Ted’s, “Bully!”,
Its cousin, Dad’s much longer fave,
“By Roosevelt’s horse’s belly!”