Tag Archives: humor

ROUND AND ROUND

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My sister’s dance recycle was held this afternoon
The open was a fresh take on the classic “Brigadoon.”
The ballerinas stole Act II updating “Claire de Loon”,
Next came a Modern version of “The Ballad of Rocky Raccoon.”
Throughout it all I snacked on extra crunchy Lorna Doones,
Which the Tap Dance Troop’s clicks covered to a new “Angelina, Zooma-Zoom.”

From where this event got its name,
at first I had no clue:
There were no boogeying bottles or can-canning cans.
But after seeing the old songs
rethunk, reduced, and reused
“Dance Recycle” is now a name I understand.

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ROBERTO CLEMENTE BENIGNI MUSSOLINI KENNEDY’S QUANDARY

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Danish, Denmark, Netherlands,
Dutch, Flanders
Flemish.

France, Wales, Britannia
Scotland, Irish
English.

Peruvian,
Bermudian,
Australian,
Toboggan,

How will I ever fit the great big world inside my noggin?

Roberto's Globe

GLOBERTO

Screen Shot 2016-02-21 at 10.11.42 AM

Click on the “book cover” image above to see this poem presented as a #StellerStory.

DEAR TOOTH FAIRY

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Dear Tooth Fairy,
Wherever you might be,
Take one good guess
Who it’s time to come see.

If you are not near by
My apologies
I know sometimes your work
Takes you overseas

Or maybe this is your week
To be on holiday
Either way, with all respect,
There’s no more time to play.

Because another tooth
At eight-oh-four this morning
Leaped out of my mouth
Without any warning.

Now I’m sure that no one knows
The tooth business like you
Or appreciates how teeth can
Fall out out of the blue.

And while unexpected calls
Must make your life tricky
Just imagine how they help
Spur the economy!

Just what would happen if
No one ever called?
Think of the horror: poor you!
At home, watching the walls!

But at least for one more day
There’s no danger of that.
So stop what you’re doing, check my address,
And this evening, be here, stat!

AN ARTIST RENDERING OF THE TOOTH FAIRY ON VACATION - Seen here (silhouette, at center), riding her Vespa in Cinque Terra.

AN ARTIST RENDERING OF THE TOOTH FAIRY ON VACATION – Seen here (in silhouette, at center), riding her Vespa in Cinque Terra.

CLOVERDEALED

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So you found a 4-leaf clover.

Well, I hunt bigger things:

Like five and six leaf clovers

And the extra luck they bring.

And the highly coveted clover

With leaves that number seven,

Legend says those who find one

Will go straight to heaven.

The eight leaf clover doubles up

What a plain four leafer brings

The 9-leaf clover isn’t lucky at all:

Touching it actually stings.

Ten leaf clovers are what I’m really after

They’re the best it gets.

So you’d like to come hunting them with me?

Hmmmm….well, ok…let’s.

I’ll bring you along for the low low price

Of that old 4-leaf clover you’ve got.

What’s that? I said 4-leafs don’t interest me?

I said that?!? Well. I must have forgot.

cloverdealed_edit

Field Notebook Renderings of Members of Genus: Polyleaf – (from upper left corner) The Basic aka The Four Score ; The And-1 ; The O’Six Pack ; The Stairway to Seven ; The Octclover ; The Stinger aka the Paul Newman aka The Henry Gondorff ; The Big Time aka the Green Whale aka The O’Derek

NEW BIG DOG

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UPDATED 9/18/17: To see this poem as a fully photo illustrated STELLER STORY, click here.

Up in the Hudson Valley
Lived a dog named Zo
He was always the biggest pooch
Wherever he would go.

Weighing more than most grownups,
Even far away he looked tall,
“No dog in all this land,” thought Zo,
“Could ever make me feel small.”

As he started each day
That was Zo’s world view
It kept his sun warm,
Made his sky extra blue.

And that’s how it was
As he strolled a new street
One morning and looked up
And saw two large feet,

And above them huge legs,
Giant ears, a big kisser,
Eyes climbing, Zo thought,
“What have we got here, Mister?

“That can’t be a dog,
There’s no way. But it is.
Up there … on that roof ….
That whole building is his.

“Do my peepers deceive me?
Is he bigger than I?
Who am I kidding?
He blocks out the sky!

“Could he be part Bull?
Smooth Fox? Jack Russell?
Would even Godzilla
With this fella tussle?”

Politely Zo nodded
And yipped a hello.
The roof dog’s response
Was too slight to show.

Or too little, at least,
To detect from the street,
At the level of Zo’s
Now fast moving feet.

“Good day sir,” Zo barked,
without looking back,
“It appears on this street
You’ve got things well intact.

“Should you stop what you’re doing
because of me? No!
You just hang out up there,
I’ll go keep being Zo.”

Then off he moseyed
Politely smiling
While in his brain this address
He was filing.

Good old clear sighted Zo
Still gets thrown in a fog
Thinking back to first meeting
That other big dog.

SONG of SATURDAY

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Clockventure, blockventure:
spend time to build towers.

Barefeetventure, carefreeventure:
no shoes means fun hours.

Dirtventures, wordventures:
dig a crossword a day,

Rockventure, dockventure:
anchors aweigh!

Of all size adventures:
“adbigs” to “adtads”

Only the nonventured ventures
are bad.

DEEP SEA PURPLE - Nothing says "weekend" quite like FDR having a smoke on the water. (Photo unknown)

DEEP SEA PURPLE – Nothing says “weekend” quite like FDR having a smoke on the water. (Photog unknown)

O’NO!

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No business card order
made Jim’s Print Shop squirm
like the monthly one from
the Dublin law firm

of “O’Billy, O’Biley, O’Riley, O’Connell,
MacDougal, MacTavish, MacCabbage, MacDonald,
Kilkenny, Kilpatrick, Fitzpatrick, Kilboyle,
McLanahan, Shanahan, Flanagan, Doyle.”

So many Dubliners would make almost any Jim's head spin.

So many Dubliners would make almost any Jim’s head spin. (Photo: PaC)

BALLOON BALLET

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Tell balloons that you know
in whom dancing passions rage

to visit our Magic Heat Vent,
the Inflatable World’s stage.

When our furnace kicks on, the hot air shoots up
from the flat vent built into the floor

and as long as the warm gusts continue,
the dreams of aspiring balloon dancers soar.

As if choreographed by the swirling heat
balloons rise and climb by the wall,

they bounce up and down, but don’t touch the ground,
‘cause their partner wind won’t let them fall.

In spring when our furnace goes off for the season
the Heat Vent performances stop,

and the dancing balloons all drift back down to Earth
telling tales of winters spent on top.

THE COLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL

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It fell from a cloud
It fluttered around
From tree branch to garden,
All across town.

It hit the ground,
Was kicked back up
And floated onto
The wing of a duck.

A quack and a flap
Launched it again
On a skyward ride rarer
Than a tooth in a hen.

The view it had during
These falls and rises
Was chock fulla fun,
Adventure, surprises,

The real life kind sweeter
Than cookies or cake
That shows how cool it is
To be a snowflake.

flake

FOR REALCICLE – This is a photo of an actual snowflake, captured by photographer Douglas Levere. To see more incredible images from his snowflake gallery, click here.

DUSTY MAMMOTH

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Zoom-zoom!
All around our room

Sister and me
Rolled a ball, one-two-three!

When-woopsy-daisy-
I rolled one too lazy

And under the bed the ball veered
And disappeared.

That’s when trying to recover it
Sis’n’I discovered it:

A dust mammoth so large
And – we swear – about to charge

Thru the regular under-bed-dust-creature zone
To scare we intruders from its dust home.

Our fear and respect for the beast was so great
there was no time to consider our misplaced ball’s fate.

So from the dust mammoth’s sight we retreated
Any hope to recover the ball now depleted.

Right away we found Mom and told her the tale
And right away came her answer, a Mom-one, without fail:

“If you’re afraid of dust creatures bigger than a dust mouse,
Then if I were you I wouldn’t play ball in the house.”

MALADY and HARMONY

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Each year the seasons germs and frost
prompted scores of fret
in the world famous Busskill singers,
The No Waiting Room Quartet.

They said, “It’s simple, really,
when we’re sick we just can’t sing
Any more than a slinky can
Slink stairs on a broken spring.”

So when the duo Cough’n’Sniffle
put The Quartet to the test,
it would quiz right back with a three pack
of Juice and Soup and Rest.

And when its Song of Winter
became a four-cough-harmony,
The Quartet tuned up a dose of health
with cords of Vitamin C.

Because the No Waiting Room Quartet
was not content waiting around
under blankets doing nothing
when there were songs to be sung about town.

THE FOANSILLIES

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The Foansillies never ending
quest is for a ring.
Their evergoing search occurs
staring at the Thing
gripped tight as their Foansilly
Palm can grip it.
From out of their hands
not a Strongman could rip it.

Forever I wondered
about this Foansilly way
‘til I met one once,
and said to him, “Hey,
Should a ring from that Thing
one day arise,
how will you contain yourself
at the surprise?

For it seems all Foansillies
spend all their time searching,
Has any among you
yet found anything?
Or could it be, maybe,
that there is no ring??”

This Foansilly laughed at me,
“No, of course not.
There are so many rings, there are more than a lot.
It isn’t one ring
we Foansillies chase.
It’s the next ring…then the next…on and on.  like outer space!”

I said, “But that search sounds like
time not well spent.”
“Well perhaps,” he replied,
“Our name’s no accident.”

SOUND ADVICE

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“Can a cantaloupe
elope to a slope
with an antelope
in an envelope?”
Said a jackalope
to a taupe-clad pope
who hoped against hope
to sell soap on a rope.

“Well it might make you mope,
but you’ll learn how to cope,
and no, you’re not a dope,”
said the pope, “but, nope.
A cantaloupe
can’t elope to a slope
with an antelope
in an envelope.”

THE DROOLING MACHINE

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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SELF PROPELLED

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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.”

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