Tag Archives: poem

RED ALERT

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Money does not grow on trees,

No circus truly features fleas,

But believe this: for giving flack

This little box lets you talkback!

To your mother, to your dad,

Aunt Petunia, Uncle Thad.

Press this button and you’ll see

Talkback happens easily!

It fits in almost any pocket,

Wireless models need no socket,

Have super-charged rebuttal lips

Right there at your fingertips.

Just 19.95 it costs,

Such a steal to be the boss!

Get yours now, do not dare chintz:

Make the world your audience!

Will folks be angry, will they care?

Grow loud, throw hands, or sternly stare?

Well if your top speed is not HARE,

Let’s just say: buyer beware.

JOHNNY CORKFORBRAINS’ LOST CUP OF TEA

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This morning Johnny Corkforbrains
Lost a cup of tea
He hasn’t got a clue
Where on Earth that it might be.

“It was so piping hot,” he thought,
“I had to set it down.
“I wouldn’t go and call it LOST.
“At the moment, it’s just unfound.”

He scoured the garage
Re-traced steps through den and potty,
In the office, in the kitchen,
Attic, bedroom, basement, pantry.

“I’m stumped,” John thought while wandering,
“Just where that cup might be —
“Wait.
“What’s this here?”
(He took a sip.)
“What luck!
I found iced tea!”

IN THE MOVIE

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In the movie near the start
We will make a scene
In which the family of the heroine
Is plain unfair and mean.

And in the movie when his bosses
Tell him flat out, “NO!”
On a lonely late night lakeshore stroll
We’ll have the hero go.

In the movie just as the
Cool kids have it figured out
We’ll have mystery baggage surface
And stir up all new doubt.

Then near the movie’s core
For the wise friend it’s a must
To advise something akin to,
“It’s apples to apples, crust to crust.”

In the movie “In the movie…”
The magic spell will be
For which the final battle’s fought,
Evil and Good, between.

Because whatever happens
A dose of “In the movie…”
Can turn any situation
Useful, funny, sad, or groovy.

CUTTING OFF YOUR NOSE TO FEED YOUR FACE

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My smeller may be broken
I cannot get a smell
Is that chicken noodle soup?
Or creme brulee?
I cannot tell.

My nose is on the fritz,
At least that’s what I think,
We drove past a manure farm
And I could sense no stink.

In fact it’s all non-scents,
No matter what I sniff,
The assembly line of my olfactory
Can’t make a whiff.

Whatever might be in the air
I can’t a bit detect
But if I may, those cookies in your hand….
Might I inspect?

They look delectable,
My eyes are Frisbee big.
Would I like one? Well I shouldn’t….
I don’t want to be a pig.

But maybe just a bite
A nibble, and another,
Wait! I can’t believe it ….
I think my nostrils tingled, brother!

Better take another cookie
They have the power to heal!
Every scrumptious crunchy byte
Makes my nosy muscles squeal!

What’s that – you’re out of cookies?
Now that they did the trick?
That’s a shame. Condolences.
At least my odor motor’s fixed.

Re-Seeding the Weeding

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Standing in the window

We saw out in the yard

Dad crouching and appearing

To be thinking very hard.

Before him lay the lawn

Which he ran both his palms through

Then he stood and snapped his fingers

Like he knew just what to do.

“Kids, congratulations!”

he said walking in the door,

“to the list of gifts we’re blessed with,

go ahead and add one more:

That rug of yellow flowers

We always viewed with alarm,

Is now the answer to the question,

‘Where’s your dandelion farm?’

“How close I came to mowing it

How lucky that I stopped!

How fortunes may have turned

If I’d ploughed our major crop:

“No dandelion tinctures,

Lost dandelion greens,

Zero dandelion wine

Or dandelion diaper creams!

“It proves how working hard

instead of smart can be a pox.

Why battle dandelion growth

When we’ve got it outfoxed?

“Now please excuse me kids,

this here farmer has had SOME day,

the land can wear you down, you’ll learn,

if on our farm you stay!”

Chuckling loudly as he exited

Dad didn’t hear us sighing,

Or see us window-squinting,

Picturing farming dandelions.

ON THE OTHER SIDE

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I can see it there …
Just beyond the bus door …
Just down the bus stairs …
After just one stop more …

Hissing brakes
Lurching stop
Squeaky hinges
I stand at the top …

Then step step step, down I go,
When feet hit street it’s begun:
The summer, sweet summer, there it is, right there,
Just beyond the bus door, all that fun.

CAN’T BE LICKED

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All day I could eat ice cream

Then still have more at night

To say there is a time I can’t eat ice cream

is not right.

That’s why in all my belt loops

I hook on sixteen spoons,

It’s why at my house there’s

Ten freezers in each room

And toppings stashed inside the pocket

Of each coat I own

And why I’m working on a way

To eat ice cream through my phone.

Ice cream may not be perfect

But it’s very very close

So to sundaes, cones, and chipwiches,

Let’s raise an ice cream toast.

licked_edit

BIG BREAK

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Half way through October
Columbus is my best friend
For his famous trip that led us to
A three day-long weekend.

The next month comes the long weekend
When three days turn to four:
When we say, “Thanks, Thanksgiving,
For serving us that much more!”

There’s the great week-long weekends in
December and the spring,
They make me smile, yes,
But only one weekend makes me sing:

It begins the day that school lets out
Sending fun into high gear:
It’s the biggest best break ever,
The Longest Weekend of the Year.

At the start of it the end of it
Looks way further away
Than the New World looked from Europe
On an explorer’s set-sail day.

On this magical most-long weekend
That lasts a quarter year
You don’t need navigation,
It’s permissible to veer

From late nights to slow mornings,
There’s no brakes on this big break:
The Longest Weekend of the Year
Means having and eating your cake.

And when sadly in late August
The Longest Weekend ends
You’ll appreciate again Columbus,
Our three-day-gifting friend.

RADIO QUESO

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On my Milwaukee Talkie
I can hear Racine,
And Green Bay and Kenosha,
And all the points between.

I can keep up on the Badgers,
The Brewers and the Pack,
And if for the 10000th time
Brett Favre is coming back.

On my Milwaukee Talkie
I love to talk up Pabst,
And how I don’t like the first name
Of Minnesota Fats.

The Bucks, Laverne and Shirley,
Alice Cooper, Happy Days,
have made the world talk about
Dear old Mill-ee-waugh-kay.

But if it’s not enough for you
To only hear about it,
If you need a special way
To celebrate and tout it

Then get and keep your own
Milwaukee Talkie by your bed
And before you sleep each night
Tune in to Channel Cheesehead.

Artist rendering of a Milwalky-Talky, produced by SONY subsidiary WISCONY.

Artist rendering of a Milwalky-Talky, produced by SONY subsidiary WISCONY.

STRING DANCER

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I want to run away
You can think me a fool
I want to leave this place and join
An elite Yo-Yo School,

I want the finger magic
The skill to twirl and flick
How making disk and string obey me
Would be plain epic,

The Walk the Dogs
And Elevators
Eiffel Towers
Alligators
Cradled Cats
And Rounded Corners
Twinkled Toes
And Jolly Mourners,

Imagine all these parlor shows
That will reside in my elbows,
Wrist and palm and thumb combos
Yos flying high, yos digging low,

For the knowledge I will need
For the lessons that I crave
For a mastery of Yo
I will gladly be a slave,

Years of study it may take
Perhaps a decade, that’s a fact
But like a yo
After I go
If I do right
I will be back.

THE LIGHT

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If life were like a grotto
There would be no score
If the lighter of a candle
Had been rich or a poor

Or boy or girl
Or black or white
Or young or old
Or left or right

Or what had brought’em there
Or how many lights they’d lit
Or if they liked to stand in back
Or kneel alone or sit

No one keeps track of how to spell
The candle lighters’ names
At a grotto time is better spent
Reflecting on their flames

And when the spirit moves,
Passing the light along,
With no thought that the candle
You’re sharing from is wrong

If life were like a grotto
Every light that we discover
Would warm and guide and give itself
To freely spark another.

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

NARC’ing OUT

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It’s not for lack of sweets that I weep,
Not a bump nor a bruise nor a finger in the door.

Restrictions on TV watching aren’t on,
No concerns being raised if I’ve finished my chores.

In order to say that anything’s wrong now,
Or that I’m being hassled I’d have to lie.

Which makes all this wailing’o’mine a N.A.R.C.,
A good, old-fashioned No Apparent Reason Cry.

Click on the image above to see what a N.A.R.C. looks like up close. (Illustration by PaC)

 

BELLY, BELLY

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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!”

LID-DLE RIDDLE

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Nothing causes more kitchen angst

Than Tupperwars,

Prompting battles for cupboards

And skirmishes for drawers,

They start out above

Then spill onto floors,

Hazards to those

Opening cabinet doors.

“There’s a bowl for every top”

is popular lore

but the day it comes true,

wild elephants will soar.

Till then the curse continues,

In kitchens rich and poor,

And all mankind must pray,

For an end to Tupperwars.

BOBBER

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Dear old Johnny Corkforbrains

Was “Bobber” to his friends.

He loved to float ideas but

Didn’t always think through the ends.

He thought, “A Tin Man suit would shine

In a Halloween lightning storm!”

Thought he needed to speak French

To listen to French Horns.

Thought “Swap that sugar in for salt,

They both look the same!”

Thought “What could be so different

Between a wild horse and a tame?”

The meanings and looks of things and words

Into the Bobber never sunk

That’s why he claimed that chocolate chips

Were related to chipmunks.

But despite his errors, he was a nice fella’,

So nobody complained

About sweethearted simpleminded Bobber,

A.k.a., Johnny Corkforbrains.

“If there was a bottle, yo’, I’ll stop it.” – Mantra, J.C.f.B (Photo by PaC)

PRECORDED HISTORY

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A caveman carved a photo
With a lens of stone:
Of a bubbling tar pit,
Of brontosaurus bones,

Of a running horse
In a French cave drawing,
Of a sabretooth with
His t-rex neighbor, jawing.

Then going “MOTION PICTURE”
He shot two glaciers racing,
The footage looked like still shots ;
Blame the racers pacing.

Capturing the land before time,
His stone Nikon in hand
A photog Missing Link he was
The Caveman Cameraman.

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Translation: "Don't move. Smile!" -The Lens of Stone

A post shared by Paul Camarata (@tweed_typewriter) on

CLEMENTINE WHO

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To the tune of
“O, My Darling,”
did a Mama sing sweetly,
to her girls,
Rose and Mary,
when they were just
one and three:

‘Sissy Ro-Ro,
Sissy Ro-Ro,
Sissy Ro-Ro,
Sissy Mare!
Sissy Mare-Mare,
Sissy Mare-Mare,
Sissy Mare-Mare,
Sissy Ro!’

As they grew up
Rose and Mary
Agreed Mama’s words were fine.
So not ‘till now in
this here story,
did they hear of
Clementine.

THE PERFECT FOIL

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How I love fall foilage,
How its colors are grand,
How they make a painting
How it revamps the land.

How I love fall foilage,
How it lights up the trees,
How it falls into piles,
How they reach my knees.

How I love the foilage,
How it scatters like sprinkles,
How it’s earth toned confetti,
How when crushed, it crinkles.

Oh, how I love foilage,
If it had its own song
I’d know every word
And get none of them wrong.

foil_og copy

DAYS CRAZE

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Some days I want a hammock
Some days I want a smock
Some days I can find all the keys
Some days I lose the lock.

Some days I’m good at sleeping
Some days I cannot rest
Some days I know the answers
Some, I forget the test.

Some days I’m dreaming big
Some days I read fine print
Some days my eyes are clear
Some, they have their own tint.

Some days feel different at the start
Some days feel much the same
Some days I take too seriously
Some too much like a game.

Some day I’ll reminisce about
Some days and how they were spent.
Some days I won’t recall by then,
When I’m wondering where all of’em went.

shemcreek_edit

SUNSET – Shem Creek, SC