.

Why Can’t I Marry My Pit Bull?

Why can’t I marry my pit bull?
He’d make an incredible spouse,
In spite of the dog hair and doo-doo,
He’d always be king in my house.
He’d listen whenever I talked to him,
Of deceit I would find not a trace,
And as long as I didn’t upset him…
He wouldn’t chow-down on my face!

Why can’t I marry my pit bull?
It isn’t as strange as it sounds.
He wouldn’t get drunk every Saturday night
Or go frolicking off with the hounds.
He’d lavish me with much affection,
Our union would bring no disgrace,
And as long as I didn’t upset him…
He wouldn’t chow-down on my face!

Why can’t I marry my pit bull?
I‘m only demanding my rights.
It’s all about charters and freedoms,
And winning minority fights.
An end to all discrimination,
In public we’ll freely embrace,
And as long as I never upset him…
He’ll never chow-down on my face!

.

.

The Devil Wears Slippers

Little by little and bit by bit,
He’s slithering up from the deepest pit,
And leaving his slithery, slimy sludge,
To trickle on the fickle and deposit a smudge.

He creeps and seeps, slick as melted butter,
With malevolent tentacles in every gutter.
His bony-phoney fingers wiggle up the drains
On a quest to test all the unawake brains.

He’s wealthy and stealthy and a glutton for power,
And he’ll sprinkle with a tinkle through the head of your shower,
And soak right down into every hair follicle,
To seep skin-deep cause he’s very diabolical.

You’ll know he’s around as he stinks like kippers,
But you may not hear him cause the Devil wears slippers.

.

.

Forever Blue

The sky is blue, the leaves are green,
This vista has forever been
At close of day till break of dawn,
And from the day that I was born,
For just as long as I remember…
January to December.

Two plus two is always four,
Not a smidgeon less or more.
Day is day and night is night,
Wrong is wrong and right is right,
And no matter where I lie,
Down is earth and up is sky.

Everything I know is true,
Like I am me and you are you,
And we are one and one the same,
It matters not from where we came.
And though some try to re-arrange…
These simple truths will never change.

He is he and she is she,
Father… Mother, made to be.
In a union by design,
Each in their own way sublime.
No matter what we say or do,
The sky will be forever blue.

.

.

Norma Pain was born in Liverpool, England and now lives in Parksville, British Columbia, Canada. Thirty of Norma’s poems were published by Dana Literary Society, between 2004 and 2007 and she was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize by that same on-line poetry site. She self-published a book of rhyme in 2000 called Bulging Assets.


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28 Responses

  1. Paul Freeman

    Absolutely loved ‘Why Can’t I Marry my Pit Bull’, especially the refrain. If you recited this to an audience, there would be much shouted participation at the end of each stanza.

    I loved the play on ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ in your slippery-slippered devilish second offering – er, and by offering I’m not implying devil worship. A small thing, though. How about changing ‘very’ to ‘most’ in the 3rd quatrain? Just saying.

    As for Forever Blue, as always well-written and galloping along.

    Thanks for the reads, Norma.

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      Thank you so much for your lovely comments Paul. Very much appreciated.

      Reply
  2. Roy Eugene Peterson

    Your sense of humor shows through each poem; however, the deeper and more subtle messages make a significant impact on the psyche! The qualities of your ideal mate are perfectly clear in those traits taken from the pit bull. Your choice of slithery slimy words greatly enhances the devil wearing slippers concept. “Forever Blue” is a wonderful depiction of those universal truths with which no one should ever trifle. More than that, it sets the record straight with logical images and facts that should make the opposition shiver. Love your poems!

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      Thank you for your comments Roy. Your words mean a lot to me.

      Reply
  3. Jeff Eardley

    Wow, brilliant again Norma. I hope you read your poetry out loud to an audience as Paul suggests.
    There’s lots of disturbing imagery in “Pitbull” and I will certainly be bunging up the plug hole to prevent any bony-phoney fingers wiggling in tonight. “Forever Blue” is a great album title. I guess you may get into bother with verse four with the way things are going these days. The great Pam would be impressed with all of these. Absolutely well done.

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      I’m very happy to receive such lovely comments from you Jeff. I’m not much of a performer (unlike Pam), other than for close family members. I was expecting some pushback about verse four, but so far…. all is quiet!

      Reply
  4. Damian Robin

    I shivered slightly at “Why Can’t I Marry My Pit Bull?” At a local poetry festival, there is a poet doing a workshop and reading on activism. Besides having a residency in Cambridge, and dyed-red hair, she says she is a ‘proud mum’ of a pit-bull.

    Good humour and wisdom in all three, Norma. Thank you for the arrows thumping the targets.

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      Thank you Damian. I thought the Pit Bull poem’s title would be an eye-catcher, but I’m sorry I made you shiver! A human mum to a Pit Bull sounds about right these days!!

      Reply
  5. Russel Winick

    Excellent work Norma – funny, well meaning, and finely messaged. Much enjoyed!

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      I am so glad you enjoyed these poems Russel. Thank you very much.

      Reply
  6. C.B. Anderson

    It’s funny, Norma, how wit combined with wisdom can unseat the most firmly entrenched ideologue. All three of these were positively delightful. Everything you write smacks of authentic folk wisdom.

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      With age comes wrinkles and wisdom! Thank you for your most appreciated comments C.B.

      Reply
  7. Martin Rizley

    The imagery in the second poem is downright creepy, like a scene from “the Blob”; it may have me looking up at the shower head before turning the water on! Regarding the first poem, the qualities of our canine friends that you point out are what make them so endearing; I´m sure a lot of husbands would do well to follow their example of loyalty, attentiveness and affection! If they keep changing the legal definition of marriage in the “woke” West, you may get your wish! Can you believe that society could go so far as to establish legal “muttrimony”? Hard to believe, but as crazy as society is getting, I can almost imagine some judge or apostate preacher willing to pronounce a couple “man and woof”!

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      Martin, I just love your descriptions of “muttrimony” and “man and woof”, which had my husband and I giggling. I haven’t seen The Blob which sounds either funny or very scary. Thank you very much for your most appreciated comments.

      Reply
  8. Margaret Coats

    “The Devil Wears Slippers” is silly and humorous but certainly true about a creature no longer taken seriously by most persons. That takes some genius on your part, Norma! “Forever Blue” is a pleasant assertion of simple truth, very relaxing to hear and read. Again, something that takes both simplicity and delicacy on the poet’s part.

    The poem on the pit bull has its own wisdom, as others have said, when we consider canine characteristics that might be desirable in marriage, but this one is undercut these days by the unhumorous and perverse”freedom to marry” movement. No fault of yours, Norma (and no criticism of your poem intended), but there are demands out there to allow marital “rights” for any kind of union, including “self marriage”–because who knows how to please anyone better than himself or herself? Keep the folk wisdom coming instead!

    Reply
  9. Norma Pain

    Thank you for all of your comments Margaret. Perhaps I am naïve but I honestly can’t believe how anyone can think that “all of this around us”, just “happened”. My mind is boggled by that thought. Just to look at a rose and not see the creative genius involved… and that’s just a rose.

    Reply
  10. Cynthia Erlandson

    Excellent combination of fun humor and serious subject matter!

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      Cynthia, you have summed up nicely, just what I was hoping to achieve. Thank you very much.

      Reply
  11. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Norma, I love these poems for their rhyme, rhythm and humor. “Why Can’t I Marry My Pit Bull?” is a superb, laugh-out-loud delight. But, more than that, each poem has an underlying message that can be heard loudly and clearly… a message of sanity is singing between the highly amusing lines. Norma, you are a poet after my own heart. Thank you for a welcome flourish of poetic normality!

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      Susan, your wonderful comments mean a great deal to me. Thank you and I’m so happy I made you laugh out loud. Laughter can help to keep us sane in in a world that is increasingly heading in the wrong direction.

      Reply
  12. Joseph S. Salemi

    Actually, I have heard that some persons have tried to enter a formal marriage with their pet, and have gone so far as to initiate legal action to do so. Since animals are not yet recognized as persons in American law, they haven’t succeeded. But if the idiots in PETA have their way, this situation may soon change.

    Who wants to bet that the first state to allow you to marry your dog will be California?

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      Thank you for commenting Joseph. If they do succeed, I wonder how divorces would be handled. Who would speak up for the the dogs’ rights since they would be classified as persons by then, therefore dogs would have rights too. Things get stranger and stranger. 🙂

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        Yes, divorced dogs would probably have more rights than divorced fathers.

  13. Joshua C. Frank

    Norma, these are great! Obviously I like the message, but I also like what you’ve done with the concepts.

    “Why Can’t I Marry My Pit Bull?:” The last stanza really says it all about every sexual “rights” movement in existence! Every step away from upholding traditional families has only emboldened people to take another step into the insanity. I’m sure a movement to marry one’s pets will be next, since we already have pet owners calling themselves “pet parents,” which is a slap in the faces of actual parents. I’m guessing that by 2030, anyone reading this poem will understand it as a plea for inter-species marriage rights.

    “The Devil Wears Slippers:” My favorite part is the closing couplet. We think of Satan as always appearing in all his ugliness, when Scripture itself says that he is able to transform himself into an angel of light.

    “Forever Blue:” The concept is well-explained, especially given that nothing shocking is said in the poem, but the one shocking thing, or the thing that should shock us all, is that these things have to be articulated in the first place, that the surrounding culture is so degenerate as to be unable to grasp these basic ideas. That being the case, Western culture will not last to 2100, except as isolated pockets of traditional, rural, Christian families.

    Reply
    • Norma Pain

      Joshua, thank you very much for all of your comments on my poetry. Indeed, how many more ‘steps into insanity’ might be taken in the future, is difficult to imagine. I was definitely expecting some pushback from somewhere, but surprisingly… all’s quiet on the western front!!

      Reply
      • Joshua C. Frank

        You’re welcome, Norma. I see no pushback, either; people keep telling me they see it on the horizon, but like the rainbow (the real rainbow God made as a sign of His mercy, not that horrible flag that is a mockery of both God’s mercy and the American flag), it goes farther away the closer you go to it.

        Though the decline has been going on since the Renaissance, I think what we’ve seen is just the beginning of the new depravity.

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