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Gail White: As The Worm Turns

The earthworms in my driveway writhe
In throes of dehydration.
The sun that struck them like a scythe
Will serve for their cremation.

That sun which fiercely fried them there,
Will gently turn me darker.
O worms, I offer you this vers
To serve you as a marker.

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Mark Totterdell: The Man up a Tree

Won’t you look at that silly old man up a tree,
at a height where no person his age ought to be.
All the fruit that he picks is as wrinkled as he,
and his face is a grimace of pain, and his knee
looks as stiff as the branch that he leans on. You’ll see
how he puffs and he pants as he fights to break free
of the twigs that he’s caught in. You’d have to agree
he’s a fool and he’s, quite unaccountably, me.

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Terese Coe: Marilyn Monroe's Hellywood

Higgledy Piggledy
Otto L. Preminger
Liked to say Marilyn
Smiled like a star.

Talentless actress, he
Quasimaliciously
Added to that, and my
Favorite bête noire.

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Pat D ‘Amico: A Private Party

I’m hosting a private party;
My brain cells are dancing a jig;
My fingers are itching for paper and pen –
It’s a rather important gig.
I can’t send an invitation,
But I’m happily spreading the news.
It’s a one on one celebration –
A welcome home for my muse.

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L. A. Mereoie: Battery Birds

‘10 Electric Hens . . . for sale.’

- Advertisement

Bland turkey time’s come round again?
Spice Christmas up with fowls
Whose taste is, nine times out of ten,
Hot plastic and burnt towels
Whose bones are chips of silicon,
Whose ligaments are wires,
And give off, as the cooking’s done,
A whiff of Hell’s own fires!

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Alex Steelsmith :Maximus Maxim

Whammily-bammily,
Emperor Maximus
marched around Europe and
conquered them all;

students of history
paronomastically
say that his escapades
took lots of Gaul.

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Ellen Dooling Reynard: No Batteries Required

I write in pencil, the original computer
of pine wood, graphite, and rubber,
instead of metal, plastic,
and that mysterious something called circuitry.
This small computational device
is simple and just:
one end for Enter, the other for Delete,
no batteries required.

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R. D. Ronstad: Modest Ambitions:

Let me be a backup singer,
Who gets the joy without the glory.
Let me be a second-stringer,
An incident but not a story.

Make me a supporting player,
Walking the low wire,
A sidekick to a dragon slayer,
Who feels the heat but not the fire.

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Max Gutmann: Sticking Point

Murmury-firmery
Theodore Roosevelt
Always spoke softly and
Carried a stick.

Finding tuxedos with
Pockets for holding this
Paraphernalia –
That was the trick.

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Chris O Carroll: Licentious Plate?

‘Raunchy’ number plates won’t be banned . . .
despite complaints  –  Daily Star headline.

BJ69’s OK
On British licence plates,
Despite the mouthful of dismay
That combo generates.

When such numbers hit the road,
New safety rules prevail.
If we spot the good head code,
We mustn’t ride that tail.

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Phil Huffy: Line Up

Two schools of thought have been applied
to getting trousers hung and dried.
One says suspension by the waist
achieves this worthy goal with haste.
Another faction’s heard to say
that upside down’s the better way.
I’ll test both methods, when inclined,
and find which one is best designed.

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John Briscoe: Genesis Doesn't Tell You This

An aardvark, even children know,
was the first of the animals to embark
the Ark.
Not at all well known though
is that in the storm-darkened wheelhouse
a long and slithy snout
sought out the ants
in Noah's pants.

Yellowish-brown aardvark design