Be careful of this tiger kitty
He rules with an iron paw
And every rat and egg and bird
Can end up in his maw
He pees where he likes
And buries poo in your garden
And sings to the moon off-key every night
And never begs of you pardon
Category Archives: poem
Idealism
Idealism (a poem)
When I was but a stupid boy
I had a stupid thought
That if you told a story well
And that story was easily bought
That you could save yourself from hell
If the story was rightly wrought
And the telling would end in joy.
………………..
But when I was an awkward youth
I tried my tale to spin
And awkwardly my words went wrong
And my story failed to win
And readers sang that critical song
And laughter crept right in
And my steering was not strong
My story was uncouth.
……………….
But as a mostly mature man
I tried to tell the truth
And live my life by a mature code
And profit from lessons of youth
And composed a much more stable ode
That rhymed while showing tooth
And defended my small abode.
I executed my story’s plan.
Finally, I wisely became real old
And I warily and wisely began to lie
I made of life a serious joke
And ate my small piece of the pie
I laughed and watched the faces in the smoke
As the fires began to die
And I made the point as I wisely awoke
My story is now told.
Filed under autobiography, commentary, humor, irony, metaphor, Paffooney, poem, poetry, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Dr. Dinkleblatter’s Diagnosis
I went to see Dr. Dinkleblatter…
Because I wanted to find out what the hell was the matter…
He said, in a way that was rather unkind…
“I’m ninety percent certain that you’ve lost your mind!”
Of course, I went home and was really quite shaken.
I was halfway convinced my poor mind had been taken.
And halfway convinced that I would be disgraced…
If it only turned out that my mind was misplaced.
So, I searched the whole house, and to my utter relief…
In my underwear drawer under white cotton briefs…
I found my old journal with cover dark brown,
And there was my thinking all quite written down.
Filed under autobiography, humor, mental health, Paffooney, poem, poetry
How the Story Ends
How the Story Ends (a poem of sour grapes)
This is how the story ends…
When fox plus grapes make themes.
It tells you all the grapes are sour…
So give up on your dreams.
But that is not the fox I know…
At least, not how it seems.
The fox who knew the little Prince
Knew love will live in dreams.
The fox I know would think of ways
To live and work in teams
He’d find a farmer, kind and large,
And share with him the dreams.
The fox would learn to plant and grow
Grape seeds in warm sunbeams,
He’d tend and also harvest
And then he’d have his dreams.
And so, when thinking the story ends,
And not accepting themes
Remember that stories never end
If you don’t deny your dreams.
Filed under Paffooney, poem, poetry, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Impossibly Positive
Impossibly Positive
(a poem about positive people)
Oakie Doak was a positive man,
Who smiled as much as any man can,
And said nice things to girls and boys,
And sour-faced men he often annoys.
The whole Doak family always feel fine,
At tables all made with both oak and pine.
But scammers from Nigeria
Took every dime anywhere near ya,
And the IRS did charge him double
In fines they argued were for the trouble
He caused accountants in adding for
The many dollars he had no more,
Doak told his wife, “No problem, Honey,
We still have love, and it’s only money.”
And when the people he loved had died,
He simply said, “I’ve always tried
To make the best of the time we had,
And the memories will always make me glad.”
Oakie Doak is disgustingly happy
And decidedly stupid and also sappy.
But he lives his life on a positive whim,
And, of course, I really wish I was him.
Lyrical Lessons from Life
I am still in lazy mode, not quite making the effort for 500 words… But, in my defense, a picture is supposed to be worth a thousand words. So, the picture above should count as 1,042 words because of the words in it.
Poetry is like that. Even bad poetry. This doggerel verse is capable of meaning far more things than it specifically, literally states. But I shouldn’t point that out. You should never explain a poem… or defend a poem… a poem should simply be. Even a bad poem.
And there are those who will say it is not a bad poem. It speaks to simple farmer wisdom, the kind I learned while yet a boy in Iowa 50 years ago. Did you realize that I made this meme on a photo of my own unweeded flower garden, grown in the unforgiving Texas heat?
That’s all there is to today’s post. A picture/poem… a tiny bit of wisdom… on the first hot Sunday in June.
Alliteration
I find alliteration to be a useful poetic tool to use for comedy purposes. I like to use it to the point of ridiculousness… as in apt alliteration’s artful aid. The repetition for repetition’s sake in spite of meaning is in itself chuckle-worthy. But when alliteration can further the meaning of the writing itself also… I liberally laugh out loud.
L-Words (a Lousy L-Poem)
Lovely little lambs lament
Little lambs lament the loss of love
Lambs lament loudly and long
Lament the loss of lovely love
Lovely little lambs laugh loudly
Little Lambs laugh at life lived lovingly
Lambs laugh long and loudly
Laugh long and loudly in lieu of love
Life and love and laughter
The three L’s
Laugh lovely little lambs!
Okay, I know… I am the king of bad poetry. But perhaps the alliterative excess makes you laugh a little bit… at my poor poetry skills if nothing else.
Alliteration always awards awesomeness on authors… or not.
Filed under commentary, foolishness, humor, irony, Paffooney, poem, poetry, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Arrivaderci, Bozo
No, I am not saying goodbye to anyone that is leaving the Trump administration. Frank Avruch has passed away.
Who is that, you may ask?
Well, from 1959 to 1970, he was Bozo the Clown. The first Bozo. The best Bozo.
And we will miss him, those of us who knew him from childhood, watching a colorful clown on black and white TV.
He did charity work for UNICEF. We collected dimes in covered coffee cans for Bozo because Bozo needed them for UNICEF. What the heck is UNICEF, you ask? Don’t you know how to use Google and Wikipedia?
So, this is a clown who inspired poetry. What? He didn’t inspire poetry in you? Well he did with me. Let me show you.
Immortality
They say a clown can never die,
And at the table has a place,
And here’s a little reason why,
It’s all about his face.
When one clown stops the life of laughter,
And stops running the human race,
Another clown can pick up after,
And keep wearing clown one’s face.
Do Not Fear The Bozo Squad
It is really, truly, very clear,
You should not fear a clown, I hear,
Identities disguised in paint,
Malevolent of thought they ain’t.
A clown is meant to make you laugh,
And I can show you with a graph,
That silliness saturates their very sheath,
And rarely hides evil underneath.
- Sleep Soundly, Sweet Bozo
- Silly songs sound in synchrony
- As the symphony sounds softly
- Sincerely saying in sweet song
- “Sing angel songs, sweet Bozo
- Your spin-off will last long.”
The Philosophy of Bad Poetry
I do write poetry. But I must admit, I am not a serious poet. I am a humorist at heart, so I tend to write only goofy non-serious poems like this one;
So here is a poem that rhymes but has too much “but-but-but” in it. A poem about pants should not have too many “buts” in it. One butt per pair, please. So this is an example of spectacularly bad poetry. Why do we need bad poetry? Because it’s funny. And it serves as a contrast to the best that poetry has to offer.
As a teacher I remember requiring students to memorize and recite Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken”. Now this sort of assignment is a rich source of humorous stories for another day. Kids struggle to memorize things. Kids hate to get up in front of the class and speak with everybody looking at them. You get a sort of ant-under-a- magnifying-glass-in-the-sun sort of effect. But in order to truly get the assignment right and get the A+, you have to make that poem your own. You have to live it, understand it, and when you reach that fork in the road in your own personal yellow wood, you have to understand what Frost was saying in that moment. That is the life experience poetry has a responsibility to give you.
Hopefully I gave that experience to at least a few of my students.
Bad poetry makes you more willing to twirl your fingers of understanding in the fine strands of good poetry’s hair. (Please excuse that horrible metaphor. I do write bad poetry, after all.)
But all poetry is the same thing. Poetry is “the shortest, clearest, best way to see and touch the honest bones of the universe through the use of words.” And I know that definition is really bad. But it wasn’t written on this planet. (Danged old Space Goons!) Still, knowing that poetry comes from such a fundamental place in your heart, you realize that even bad poetry has value. So, I will continue writing seriously bad poetry in the funniest way possible. And all of you real poets who happen to read this, take heart, I am making your poetry look better by comparison.
Filed under humor, insight, irony, philosophy, poem, poetry, Uncategorized
The Problem-Solving Life
Yesterday I temporarily solved my computer problem with the Russian hacker with the help of the technical support people of McAfee Anti-Virus software. My computer works again. But I have had loss of personal data, and I am not yet sure that they didn’t take control of my Google account. It seems like I can change my password safely, but having been broken into, I have to wonder if the Russians are able to read this as I type it. I know I sound like a crazy, paranoid old man. The technician thinks so too. But it is harder than ever to have faith in a system when so many bad actors seem to have more control over things than I do. I am the novelist. I should be able to control the plot and the dialogue and the happy endings in my own story. But I can type on my computer again and my machine is cured of the Russian computer flu.
The point I wanted to make today, now that I have my word-mulching machine back to word-mulching form, is that I have always been a solver of problems, both simple and complex. It goes with being a teacher hand in hand because being a school-type teacher-man means solving problems for the little people and teaching them to be problem solvers too.
The big problem with problem-solving, however, is that there is always one more problem to be solved… unless there are ten more. Life is a matter of problem-solving, and you cannot be happy until you learn both to solve problems, even hard ones, and be reconciled to the fact that there will always be problems you have to live with and cannot solve.
Among the ten more problems I am now faced with is the problem of not having enough money to cover all the bills as I and my children continue to do things that cost money, like getting sick, eating, living in Texas, wearing clothes, wearing extra cold-weather clothes, and getting hacked by Russians. I want desperately to get a part-time job I can do. I am thoroughly qualified to be a substitute teacher. But I can’t do that job because I am in poor health. One more bout of the flu picked up in the germ farms that are Texas public schools will end me. Besides, if my health were sound enough for the classroom, I would still be teaching. It was a job God made me for, and I love teaching.
I was earning extra money the hard way through driving for Uber, daily risking an onslaught of shady clients, thoroughly unpleasant back-seat drivers, and Texas killer grandmas driving Lincoln Town Cars through stop signs at every other corner. And then I got hit in the driver’s side door by a goof who was talking to his passenger instead of looking as he turned across traffic. He didn’t see me until he clobbered me with his car. There was no way at all I could have avoided that collision. It cost me money for a deductible even though he was totally at fault. It cost me six months of driving time. I have been able to drive for other purposes, but I have not been able to drive for Uber since the accident. My driving-for-money confidence is missing. I have looked for it everywhere. It isn’t in any of the closets in the house. I guess I will simply have to make some more and get out and drive again.
So, living a problem-solving life ain’t easy, but it is necessary. It will get figured out, through persistence if nothing else. Because we all have to. And I can already see ten more problems headed towards me down the thorny garden path that is my life.
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Filed under autobiography, commentary, education, feeling sorry for myself, humor, insight, Paffooney, poem