Archive for the ‘poem’ Tag
A few weeks ago, I posted a number of limericks written in the World War II era. Your response was much better than I anticipated so I thought I’d dig up a few more from that same era to make you laugh and smile all these years later.
A WAVE who had duty at sea,
Complained that it hurt her to pee.
Said the Chief Bosun’s mate,
“That accounts for the fate
Of the cook and the captain and me.”
In the Army and Navy, the toast is
To the talented USO hostess
Who was diddled and screwed
While she tried to conclude
Which service she really liked mostest.
A female Nazi from Bredo
Advances her sinister credo,
By displaying her charms
During air raid alarms,
Inflaming the warden’s libido.
An oversexed G.I. in France
Decided to take just a chance,
But the fairest of foxholes
In Paris are pox holes,
And now he’s got France in his pants.
💥💥💥
WAR IS TRULY HELL
🤠🤠🤠
If you didn’t already know this, limericks in their own way are historical documents. In the past I reprinted a selection of World War II era limericks but how could I possibly forget the interesting limericks created by some of our famous cowboy historians. I knew I would find some bawdy limericks about our western heritage as written by bored saloon patrons or from a few bored bar maidens, or even a select few university scholars like Ray Allen Billington (Limericks, Historical and Hysterical). Try these on for size.
While Sue lay supine ‘neath a willow,
She was screwed by a large armadillo,
And remarked to the same,
As both of them came,
That the next time he might bring a pillow.
🐎🐎🐎
When a lady returned from Big Moose,
Her husband exclaimed, “What the deuce,
I’m quite reconciled
To the call of the wild,
But where did you get the papoose?”
🐴🐴🐴
An Indian, who claims we can trust her,
Insists she was raped by George Custer.
Despite what he planned,
His three-inch last stand,
Was all Colonel Custer could muster.
🤠🤠🤠
Cowboys at the end of the Drive
Were so horny they scarce could survive.
So, the whores of Dodge City
Out of greed (not for pity)
Worked double shifts: from nine til five.
💩💩💩
WHO DOESN’T LOVE HISTORY?
As I was preparing this post, I decided midsentence to step away from poetry for a day or two and to return to one of my favorite things which are limericks. I have quite the collection of limericks of all types and unfortunately, I have hundreds that I really can’t post on this blog, no matter how much readers continue to request them. I’ve picked out a few random samples from different historical periods and I’ll post them over the next few weeks. Here is my history by limerick . . .
***
World War II
A lady of doubtful nativity
Had an ass of extreme sensitivity.
She could sit on the lap
Of a Nazi or Jap,
And detect Fifth Column activity.
🪖🗽🪖
Don’t dip your prick in a WAC
Don’t ride the breast of a WAVE.
Just sit in the sand
And do it by hand
And buy bonds with the money you save.
🪖🗽🪖
There was a young lady from Beaman,
Who was known as a sexual demon.
“These soldiers,” said she,
“Mean nothing to me,
For what I really like is the semen.”
🪖🗽🪖
A female Nazi from Bredo
Advances her sinister credo,
By displaying her charms
During air raid alarms,
Inflaming the warden’s libido.
***
“The poet is a reporter interviewing his own heart.”
Christopher Morely
***
Poetry at times can be beautiful. It can bring tears to your eyes and joy to your heart but as with anything it also has the ability to become something dark and disturbing. I try to make a point of reading samples of poetry from as many poets as I can. Some of the most touching poems are not about happy moments running through fields of flowers with birds flying around, but of deep sadness and pain.
On a regular basis I make purchases from thrift bookstores on eBay. A book arrived at my home recently and I knew reading it was going to be extremely difficult. It’s a selection of poetry written by young people who have had to deal with divorcing parents. The book is titled “broken hearts… healing”, Young Poets Speaking Out, compiled and edited by Tom Worthen, Ph.D. I just finished reading the first half of that book and it forced me to deal with the pain I caused to my own son. Many years ago, I ended a twenty-year marriage and caused a great deal of pain to a young man that we adopted (at age twelve) from a number of state-run foster homes. He deserved better than we were able to give him at the time, and this book brought it all back with a vengeance. Here are two poems that brought tears to my eyes.
TUG OF WAR
Nobody has the life I have,
I can’t imagine if the whole world did.
My parents don’t even talk,
They get to ask who wants us and when.
It is like me and my two sisters are in the middle of everything.
So I hope you don’t have the life I have,
And if you do I’m sorry.
by Beth, Age 11
***
WHERE IS MY DAD?
He comes around like he cares,
but when I was young he was not there.
He has a new family and a wife to love dear,
when I was around he made me feel weird.
When I was alone crying in my bed,
was he there, no, it was mom instead.
When I look at my friends with their moms and dads,
I think if he didn’t mess it up,
Oh, what I could have had!
by Dana, Age 13
***
“Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking.”
by John Wain
***
As I worked my way slowly through the public school system back in the 1960’s I received little or no information or exposure to poetry. It was mentioned in passing in some classes but there never was any serious time devoted to it. It just seems to me that making some poetry (not just the classics) available to younger students might just motivate them to either read more poetry or to write their own. A gentlemen named Richard Lewis, a lecturer on children’s literature and creative writing, apparently agreed with me. In cooperation with UNESCO, he traveled through eighteen English speaking countries around the world collecting poetry written by children between the ages of five and thirteen. Three thousand poems were collected with the best 200 published in his book, “Miracles” published in 1966. I’ve picked out two samples to give you some idea of just how talented many of the youngsters can be when expressing their thoughts in a poetic fashion.
THUNDER
by Glenys Van Every, Age 9, Australia
I hear
the drummers
strike
the sky.
***
SUMMER
by Margaret Bendig, Age 10, United States
Inviting, rippling waters
Waiting for little toes
Hurry, go get changed!
***
After reading a few pages of these poems I had a minor epiphany. These children were not trained in poetry but as they wrote their poems many of them began to look very much like free-verse haiku’s. Having no set restrictions on the length of lines and syllable counting allows the young poets freedom to truly express themselves.
Of course, being the irreverent SOB that I am I decided to write this haiku of mine and take it down a road not normally traveled. It contains some reference to nature but also just a touch of my humor. It’s a poetic mortal sin to write them this way and I’m sure it will tweak the noses of a few people. It’s always fun at times to make some people a little crazy.
*❤️*
NATURAL
by Me, Age: Old
Out of the corner of my eye
A bird sails quietly by.
A flash of golden sunlight,
And I have bird shit on my thigh.
***
SMILE, I DID INCLUDE SOME NATURE
‘The best craftsmanship always leaves holes and gaps . . . so that something
that is not in the poem can creep, crawl, flash, or thunder in.”
Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Well, welcome back to 2024. I hope you enjoyed the last post concerning Mr. Poe because I certainly did. I thought today I would begin talking about haikus. The current requirements for haikus are a first line with five syllables, a second line with seven syllables, and a third line of five syllables. When I first discovered the haiku I thought the rigidity of this design didn’t make a lot of sense. The more I learned about haikus the wiser I thought I became. Here are two examples of haiku’s written by a gentleman from Japan who is considered the father of haikus, Matsuo Kinsaku (1644-1694). He began writing haikus under the name of Basho in 1672. In Basho’s humble opinion a haiku should be created using a minimum of words to paint a mental picture for the reader. Basho included descriptions of nature in most of his haikus but wasn’t limited to a fixed syllable count. I’m all for free-verse haiku’s but I still find the nature requirement of Basho a bit restrictive. Here are couple of samples of Basho’s haikus published in the 1680’s. See what you think.
Spring rain –
under trees
a crystal stream.
***
On the dead limb
squats a crow –
autumn night.
The structure of haikus as mentioned above were created by two poets, Sokan (1458-1546) and Moritake (1472-1549). In Basho’s opinion their works were terse but failed to adequately evoke nature. Three hundred years later a haiku school, the Soun, was opened celebrating Basho’s free-verse approach. The haiku should be based on content not on the number of syllables in each line. With this I whole heartedly agree.
Here is a little something I discovered recently. It’s shows the form of a free-verse haiku but was simply published as a standard poem. References to nature are gone offering a more interesting take on life, love, and people.
we are the dreamers
we are the dancers
life is the music
love is the song.
For all of you Star Trek fans out there, this was written some years ago by Leonard Nimoy and was included in his book of poetry “A Lifetime of Love” published in 2002.
“The true poet dreams being awake.”
Charles Lamb
I thought I’d start this year with a most interesting writer and poet, Edgar Allen Poe. I was introduced to him in high school way back in the days of covered wagons and wild Indians (that was sarcasm). His poetry was spooky, dark, and mysterious which drew me to it immediately. What 15-year-old kid wouldn’t love that? As with most school systems of the time they offered only a few of his writings for classroom work and discussion. The Raven stands as one of his greatest works and we were required to read and memorize certain passages to get a passing grade and then we moved on to other things. My second Poe favorite was Anabel Lee. A love story for the ages except Anabel doesn’t long survive the experience. The flow of his words in that poem grabbed me immediately and I was able to quote some of its passages for years and occasionally still do.
As I aged and was able to read more about Poe and his strange approach to life, the more attention I began to pay to poetry in general. I still think that actual world class poets are few and far between, but Poe was the real deal. Along with Emily Dickenson they are my two favorites. I especially liked Poe because he wrote what he felt and really did nothing to pander to the masses. In my opinion that’s what gives his works real meaning and weight.
Another of Poe’s works has slowly over the years made its way to the top of my favorites list, even more so than the Raven and Anabel Lee. I stumbled on to it quite by accident years ago and it has become one of those rare things that periodically calls to me to be read again. As with all of Poe’s poetry it’s best read while wrapped in a warm blanket on a dark and stormy night by candlelight.
ALONE
From childhood’s hour I have not been
As others were – I have not seen
As others saw – I could not bring
My passions from a common spring –
From the same source I have not taken
My sorrow – I could not awaken
My heart to joy at the same tone –
And all I lov’d – I lov’d alone –
Then – in my childhood – in the dawn
Of a most stormy life – was drawn
From ev’ry depth of good and ill
The mystery which binds me still –
From the torrent, or the fountain –
From the red cliff of the mountain –
From the sun that ’round me roll’d
In its autumn tint of gold –
From the lightning in the sky
As it passed me flying by –
From the thunder, and the storm –
And the cloud that took the form
(When the rest of Heaven was blue)
Of a demon in my view.
1829
***
WELCOME TO 2024
“Resolution in a bad cause is called stubbornness; stubbornness in a good cause is called resolution.”
Anonymous
Well, here I quietly sit trying to decompress from another Christmas season. I just completed my two and a half months’ worth of humor primarily to see if the response to the humor posts was as good or equal to my standard blogging techniques. The increase was minor which tells me many things but that will have to wait for another day. Just so you know, it would probably bore you to tears.
My plan going forward for 2024 is to do a few weeks of poetry. Some of you will enjoy that thoroughly and others will say “what the hell are you doing?” I get that poetry is not something everyone likes, and I understand that completely. I’ve tried to read as much poetry as I could over the years and truthfully the great majority of it was disappointing. It’s not that poetry isn’t interesting; it just wasn’t interesting to me. I’ve come to realize that my favorite poems are short, sweet, and something that forces the reader to use their imagination. That eventually led me to haikus. For me to enjoy poetry it has to be less than three stanzas long. Even that’s a little much for me that’s why I find haiku’s so interesting. So, I suppose January is going to consist of short and meaningful poetry taken from many famous poets, some of my own, and some of yours if you choose to offer it up to be posted. I’ll also throw in a host of limericks of all flavors just for fun. I hope you’ll enjoy what I’m trying to do here, maybe you will and maybe you won’t.
But before we start January, I need to deal with some other business relating to 2024. That is my New Year’s resolutions. In the past I’ve usually listed ten and completed at most six or seven. I try to make them humorous because most people don’t take them all that serious anyway. This year I’ll list just five, maybe that will motivate me to complete a higher percentage. Here they are:
READ MORE THAN 100 BOOKS
TRY TO BE A LITTLE FRIENDLIER TOWARDS THE REST OF THE WORLD
KEEP DUNKIN’ EXPENDITURES TO LESS THAN $40.00 A MONTH
COMPLETE EIGHT PAINTINGS OR PRINTS
LEARN AT LEAST FOUR NEW CUSS WORDS FROM MY GRANDSONS
***
“Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.”
Ben Franklin
***
There you have it. Maybe I’ll accomplish them all for a change (chances are slim and none) but I’ll keep trying. It’s always fun to look back at previous years to confirm just how bad you are about being successful.
HAPPY NEW YEAR
Quote of the Day
“He repeated to himself an old French proverb that he made up that morning.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
🤪🤪🤪
Joke of the Day #1
A man and woman were driving down the road arguing about his deplorable infidelity when suddenly the woman reached over and, in a rage, sliced off the man’s penis. Angrily, she tossed it out the car window. Driving behind that couple was a man in his car with his six-year-old daughter. The little girl was chatting away to her father when all of a sudden, the penis smacked their car windshield, stuck there for a moment, then flew off. Surprised, the daughter asked her father, “Daddy, what the heck was that?” Shocked, but not wanting to expose his little girl to anything sexual at such a young age, the father replied, “It…it was only a bug, honey.” The daughter sat with a confused look on her face for a moment and said, “Sure had a big dick, didn’t it?”
☘️☘️☘️
Limerick of the Day
And unfaithful old bounder, called Reg,
Had neglected his marital pledge,
Till his long-suffering wife
Fetched her sharpest kitchen knife
And removed his meat and two veg.
🤡🤡🤡
Joke of the Day #2
An old farmer in Georgia owned a large farm for many years. He had a pond in the back, fixed up real nice with picnic tables, horseshoe courts, and a basketball court. The pond was properly shaped and constructed for swimming. One day the farmer decided to go down to the pond, as he hadn’t been there for a while, to look things over. As he neared the pond, he heard voices shouting and laughing. As he came closer, he saw was a bunch of young women skinny-dipping in his pond. He made the women aware of his presence and they all went to the deep end of the pond. One of the women shouted to him, “Were not coming out until you leave!” The old man replied with a grin, I didn’t come down here to watch you ladies swim or to make you get out of the pond naked. I’m just here to feed the alligator.”
The Moral: Old age and cunning will always triumph over youth and enthusiasm.
🤗🤗🤗
Wisdom of the Day
The fewer the words the better the prayer.
Quote of the Day
“The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.”
Oscar Wilde
🤪🤪🤪
Joke of the Day #1
“A teacher asks her class, “If there are five birds sitting on a fence and you shoot one of them, how many will be left?” She calls on Little Johnny to answer. He replies, “There are none left, they all flew away with the first gun shot.” The teacher replies, “The correct answer is actually four, but I like your way of thinking.” Then Little Johnny says, “I have a question for YOU. There are three women sitting on a bench having ice cream. One is delicately licking the sides of the triple scoop of ice cream. The second is gobbling down from the top and sucking on the cone. The third is biting off the top of the ice cream. Which one is married?” The teacher, blushing a great deal, replies, “Well, I suppose the one that’s gobbled down the top and sucked the cone.” To which Little Johnny replies, “The correct answer is the one with the wedding ring on, but I like your way of thinking.”
☘️☘️☘️
Limerick of the Day
There was a young virgin named Jeanie,
Whose dad was an absolute meanie.
When he finished a hatch,
With a latch, for her snatch –
She could only be had by Houdini.
🤡🤡🤡
Joke of the Day #2
An old man goes to a local wizard to ask him if he can remove a curse he has been living with for the last 40 years. The wizard says, “Maybe, but you will have to tell me the exact words that were used to put the original curse on you.” The old man said without hesitation, “I now pronounce you man and wife.”
🤗🤗🤗
Wisdom of the Day
Myths which are believed tend to become true.
everyuselessthing.com 