I'll Take Eccentric Billionaires for $500
The prompt is:
"I have never listened to anyone who criticizes my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room."
"Who is Elon Musk?"
Author notes: Prompt one I have never listened to anyone who criticizes my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.
"Dance!", she said to herself
"Dance for your life!"
"Dance, dammit!"
Slowly, she floated to her tippy toes
Mom used to call them
"There", she thought...
"That's better"
The poppy seeds
Sure added spice
The mice are now
In paradise
Author notes: WC 12 https://allpoetry.com/contest/2783506-15-words-or-less--image-prompt
Is there a poultice for the solstice?
A cure for seasonal malaise?
A kindling to set ablaze
This frozen landscape with some feeling?
The sheer bland whiteness has me reeling
Oh, for a little extra zest
Variety’s my hidden quest
A little zest might send me squealing
Maybe a mirror on the ceiling?
A bit cliché’, the mirror stays
Some zest, even in little ways
Is there a poultice for the solstice?
Author notes: The title is a play on Shakespeare's (and Steinbeck's) Winter of our Discontent https://allpoetry.com/contest/2781983-love--spice--and-solstice-on-ice
Her memory cauldron threatens to boil over
Evaporating bubbles take
first casual acquaintances, then friends
Any minute now, a popping bubble might
take away a grandchild.
Evil, this witch
Author notes: wc 29 https://allpoetry.com/contest/2783509-Brevity-contest---Bubbling-memories--
My friends do tell me, with affection
As if I wasn’t under steam
You’re rowing in the wrong direction
Can they not hear my silent scream?
It’s lonely, traveling upstream
The water swallows my reflection
And swelling rapids steal my dream
Author notes: I wrote this after a difficult argument when I was told by a friend to try and "just get along".
Some doctors become brain surgeons
but others choose to become proctologists.
This happens for the same reason
that Galapagos finches evolved various size beaks.
This also explains why some people are bigger assholes.
Author notes: A big believer in evolution, I am
The horror of each taken life
Each victim of a bloody battle
I do not pity friend or wife
The fallen, sacrificial cattle…
Alas, a wife’s grief will subside
The memory of friends will perish
But there’s a soul that can’t abide
So long as she’s alive, she’ll cherish!
In our hypocrisy filled years
Prosaic and profane existence
I’ve seen but one pure source of tears
The tears of mothers, their insistence
On holding memory at bay
They can’t forget, not for a day
Their fallen sons, wet grass their pillow
Just as the mournful, weeping willow
Can’t lift its branches, in its way...
The 19th Century Russian poet wrote this about the Napoleonic Wars
Внимая ужасам войны,
При каждой новой жертве боя
Мне жаль не друга, не жены,
Мне жаль не самого героя.
Увы! утешится жена,
И друга лучший друг забудет;
Но где-то есть душа одна —
Она до гроба помнить будет!
Средь лицемерных наших дел
И всякой пошлости и прозы
Одни я в мир подсмотрел
Святые, искренние слезы —
То слезы бедных матерей!
Им не забыть своих детей,
Погибших на кровавой ниве,
Как не поднять плакучей иве
Своих поникнувших ветвей…
She told me: “you live in a bubble
To me you’ve been nothing but trouble
I plead, I beseech
You just hang on the beach
Get out of my house on the double"
I gave her a sarcastic “preach”
So tired of her rusty speech
I went to the shore
In my bubble once more
I’m sure she’ll find someone to teach
Author notes: https://allpoetry.com/contest/2781711-Beach-Bubble-Double-Limerick
The rolling dice do mesmerize
so many rolls, so many lies
so many arguments, goodbyes
so many cries, so many sighs
Oh, what’s at stake?
When can I wake?
What will it take?
Eyes of the snake
Send me to heaven
And roll a seven
Before eleven
Author notes: https://allpoetry.com/contest/2782373-numerology
These trespassers annoy, you know?
Yes, I live in the village, so?
Why can't they stop elsewhere, not here
Why watch MY woods fill up with snow?
Don’t think of me a horse’s rear
There is no farmhouse, nowhere near
There’s truly nothing till the lake
And yet they stop here every year
It doesn’t seem like a fair shake
There must, there must be some mistake
Must I rely on wind to sweep
Signs of their presence, flake by flake
My woods are lovely, dark and deep
But it's My property to keep
And so I can't get any sleep
And so I can't get any sleep
Author notes: As I saw Robert Frost's poem scroll by in the classic pics, I couldn't resist. Tried using exactly the same rhymes as much as possible ----------------------------------- ---------- The immortal Robert Frost classic: Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.
When you see Jack Nicholson tell the waitress
to hold the chicken between her knees, you think it’s as good as it gets but it just keeps getting better
And if the Oscars are anything like a wall of honor,
then we do, we do need him on that wall
Author notes: great contest idea https://allpoetry.com/contest/2783431-Paying-Respect-to-Academy-Experts--Actors-C The Jack Nicholson movies mentioned are of course the title -- Five Easy Pieces, As Good As It Gets, and a reference to A Few Good Men Here is the Five Easy Pieces "hold the chicken" scene https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdIXrF34Bz0