Humor

  Please bring the wine cuz I'm flat broke, I couldn't even buy a can of Coke. But once you smell my heart's sweet rose, you'll only wish you were all nose.   Robert Klein Engler lives in...

  I like to write, and writing's free; Liberates mind of memory. I take a chance to be creative; For daily stress, a palliative. Not modern work, you understand; A failure when I tried my...

Thank you to everyone who participated and made this a great year for rhyming riddles! —Evan Mantyk, Judge First Place ($100): Monty Phillips, France I’ve never been exactly sure How long I’ve been...

  Pentadactyl 5-foot dactylic poem with a truncated fifth foot on the odd-numbered lines. With apologies to Pterodactyls. Dactyls are terrible lizards that fly at the mind pounding their emphasis...

The Ballad of the Poor Troubadour I’m past my prime __and I’m out of time— I never made a dime from a rhyme. There ain’t much worse __than an empty purse— I suffered from the curse of the...

  Why photograph a fact when you can catch A nightmare, be a Jackson Pollock or A Dalí at his Druid weirdest? Snatch A depth of fanged subconscious and then pour Some paint of guts across your...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) Crossing the Swamp by Jon MacNaughton by Caud Sewer Bile "If freedom of speech is taken away...we may be led, like sheep to...slaughter." —George Washington The boat...

In the Poetry Writing Workshop “Milton conceived the Paradise Lost as a whole before he executed it in portions. We have his own authority also for the Muse having ‘dictated’ to him the...

—from A Gallery of Ethopaths* The computer is a simple tool— It cannot change an arrant fool Into a brilliant, thoughtful scholar, Although the damned thing costs top-dollar. It cannot help someone to...

Sonnet on the Death of Teeth I’m amused by a brush with Death In the depths of my bathroom mirror. His grimaces shrink into grinning, His ruthlessness fades to bad breath. His rot had once fogged me...

  If seasons pass too fast you'd better run. If they proceed too slow indulge in fun. Sunups are best enjoyed in days of cold. Sundowns when heat waves linger fierce and bold. Old age returns...

Sail Fever I knew some terms, the merest germs Of illness called ‘Sail Fever’: Tack starboard, port, keep mainsail taut, Steer boat by tiller lever! One Saturday, beside the bay, A salesman full of...

Garden Waltz a terza rima sonnet in dactylic pentameter with a truncated foot at the end of each line Radishes sway to the rhythm of sunlight and rainfall, Carrots to minerals present in alkaline...

Guess who is not invited to come to a dinner here? Rights are just for some people. Others have to disappear. There is no bias in denials of our services; we shall not break bread with those who do not...

Winners announced here. Scroll down and read the comments section to enjoy all of the submissions. What has no subject one can tell, Yet tries to make it ring a bell? What makes you scratch your head...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) Confucius Institutes "Three things cannot be hidden long: the sun, the moon and truth." —paraphrase of a Buddhist quote by Lu "Reed ABCs" Wei The Chinese...

Congratulations to the following winners! Thank you to judges Joseph S. Salemi, James Sale, and Damian Robin.   First Place $100 Prize: Ben Foreman, Cascabel, Arizona Cheesemaking Find a...

  Everlasting Chesterton The author, G.K. Chesterton: A playful epigramist, A master of the terse bon mot, And witty dithyrambist. He loathed pomposity and claimed (And I believe quite...

  I Love This Life a rondeau I love this life in spite of all the trying times and every wall I must tear down to find success, although sometimes my happiness is thwarted, slowing to a...

by Con Chapman Nyla Matuk and I have a few things in common; we are both poets (or in my case, claim to be), and we both know what sumptuary laws are, she having written a book of poems using that term as...

(All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) The Cat in the Red MAGA Hat by Carb Deliseuwe Eugenior Joseph took girlfriend and mom on Mother's Day to Cheesecake Factory, Miami, for a piece of cake. Though he was...

Song of Us Face to face, polite and careful, Tentative we were, and prayerful, Neither one of us would dare pull More from this than met the eye. . . . Yet Side by side we worked together, Hands of...

  In an old timber town lived a man of renown; With a chainsaw he couldn’t be beat, And as quick as you’d say “What’s for dinner today?” Limbs would fall, cut precise and complete; And...

  Tulip Tree in Bloom, January Every working day I pass a tulip tree on yellow grass and strain to see, when it appears, petals out this time of year. Even our southern winter's strong-- it...

Lullaby When you sang to your baby boy did other hearts not fill with joy those few who just happened to hear? for even on their darkest day your lullaby would chase away every doubt and pain and...

I used to be politer, but more boring, my friends say. They could take me anywhere. My conversation wasn’t overbearing. My actions seemed as if I didn’t care more than was apt. Now I appear...

 (All poetry by Bruce Dale Wise) Am-air-ica by Eber L. Aucsidew Die Welt proclaimed the biggest drop in CO2 was in America, in the first year of Donald Trump—no spin. Though worldwide emissions...

On looking into the mirror one afternoon An old buzzard once came and he knocked on my heart, And politely he asked to come in for a while. He had said he was looking for carrion to eat, “Oh no...

  Goose Sense A burden and a bore I must have been; As handy as another leg, I'd slouch The farm in borrowed overalls, and when My chores were done I'd nap on grandpa's couch. I thought of books and...

  I knew her when I could be called a youth And life had not uncovered certain truths Apparent to detectives, super-sleuths; Such as ‘Best clues are found within untruth.’ For boasting of a...

A tribe of trolls escaped their cage! Now rabid wrath and rancor rage. Hurling hurt from hidden hellholes (most notably, their toilet bowls), they flush their filth across your page … Anonymity sets...

The Fall Now, if you’re sitting comf’tably, then listen to my ballad; it is a Summer evening tale of pizza and of salad. “I’ll take the plates out, love,” I said, "for your hands tend to...

  You caught me staring at you yesterday, or so it seemed, for you—you smiled and blushed and all your girlfriends giggled in the hushed and stilted silence of the lecture. They had to have...

After Joachim du Bellay’s "Les Regrets LXVIII" I hate the Florentines' foul avarice, I hate lewd Sienese profanity, I hate Geneva's glib duplicity, I hate malign Venetian artifice, I hate whate'er...

The neologist bakes the cake, The iconoclast shreds the recipe Deems the structure all a fake, But powerless against euphony, Leaves empty gestures in his wake. Arthur Lamar Mitchell ©...

The Cymbal Player As bows and fingers quiver strings, as lungs and lips whip up the air, as notes soar on great falcon wings, one player, seated in his chair like a finch hid in a maple tree, as if...

Wordsworth’s Lament I wandered lonely as a cloud—Oh dear! I watched the dance of daffodils—Oh my! When on my couch in vacant mood I lie I feel their wealthy fluttering draw near. I see them toss...

It’s a vicious process, sonnet writing. It seems as every time I near the goal a syllable or rhyme eludes me, rendering my poetry somewhat droll. I feel empathy for those who struggle and a growing...

He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. The misreporting of great Caesar’s death Errs by one gross omission. We’re not told That when conspirators bared blades to strike, Caesar’s well-practiced...

Which Is the Grandest Name of All? Which is the grandest name of all? Churchill, Churchill, Churchill! Winter sere or crimson fall Churchill, Churchill, Churchill! Who held bold freedom’s flag so...