What do storms and library books have in common? Continue reading
Tag Archives: humor
Bee Patient
towering salvia stalk,
every tiny purple trumpet
is tenderly touched Continue reading
Delicious Demon
Eat the delicious demon.
Gobble him up.
Before his chocolate
nose runs
or his raspberry filling
bedevils your brain.
Breathe in that
cinnamon scent:
sweet, spicy, sinister.
He has the molten texture
of dark lava cake.
Sink into the zippy
comfort of way-too-much
sugar-joy, skating like
vengeful Olympians
in your veins.
The worst demons
are the delicious ones.
Resistance is futile.
He’s hiding his fangs?
Wouldn’t you,
if you were delicious, too?
Notes: Artwork is rights reserved to the original artist. This poem was inspired three years ago by comments on a post. Since then, it has lurked in my draft file, biding its time, sighing, despairing, imprisoned. Finally, I set it free. Dig in and enjoy. Have a magical day! Two weeks to Halloween!
Strawberry Patch
Leaves of three and
white petals
foretell the fruit. Continue reading
Fantasy of Summer
Waves of heat bake golden sand,
splashed by frothy waves. Gulls
and sandpipers dot grassy dunes.
A long, tall drink comes to hand.
Continue reading
Reindeer Games in #Finland
Air snaps at the Finland
Winter Festival.
Carnival fragrances
of coffee and sweet dough
mingle with the muskier
scent of reindeer.
Reindeer racers hail
from Finland without fail,
but also Spain, Germany,
France, Australia and Italy!
To Oulu from
far and near,
they race and laugh
with joyful reindeer.
Kids of all ages watch and ride.
My inner kid wants to finish
the Finnish challenge
one day, wrapped in my parka
and wearing a rainbow cap.
Maybe I’ll even see the
Northern lights.
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: Photographs used by permission of Sartenada. If you wonder what it looks like beyond the Arctic Circle in summer, she has another great post with reindeer. I learned many names for reindeer in other languages, rennes (French), renos (Spanish), poro (Finnish), renna (Italian), rentier (German), ren (Romanian) and 驯鹿 (Chinese).
Pee-U, A Clerihew!
The American Frank Lloyd Wright
changed architecture with his love of line and light,
incorporating nature, glass and intersecting planes,
but I wonder what he thought about the drains.
Copyright 2016 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: A Clerihew is a humorous 4-line rhyming poem, aabb, about a famous person who’s introduced in the first line. I wrote another here as well as listing some famous ones.
Cee’s Which Way Challenge
Hulahoopers Crossing
Wrestle with Trestle
The Shadow Knows
Frogs Welcome
Way to make me smile, Cee! I’ve missed your challenges.
Happy September and Back-To-School Month!
Warmly, Brenda
Rabbit Hole
fall here
landings will be softened
by cake
Copyright 2015 Brenda Davis Harsham
Ogden Nashery
Itty bitty, not very pretty,
(Unless to his mama)
Stone silent, not very witty,
But the high hop creates drama;
From the woods not the city
(At least not Yokohama)
Inspires this little ditty
From one who likes to yammah.
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: Despite my usual inclination that a poet should never explain, for those not from New England, the “yammah” is a Bostonian pronunciation of yammer. My photograph is of a Pinetree Spurthroated Grasshopper (Melanoplus punctulatus), a rare sighting. Not only had I never seen a grasshopper like him before, my research indicated he’s rare in general. My poem is an ode to Ogden Nash, a particular favorite author of my children and I. Here is one of his poems, which I hope offering here, would not have displeased him:
The Ant
The ant has made himself illustrious
Through constant industry industrious.
So what?
Would you be calm and placid,
If you were full of formic acid?
— Ogden Nash
Flash Fiction: River Romance
The sun was setting, cherry blossoms perfumed the air, and Esme’s handsome boyfriend, Al, paddled at her side. His fine, green Mallard head feathers looked purple in the waning sunlight. She nibbled on bulrushes.
Nosy daffodils crowded round taking selfies. You’d think it was an award ceremony.
Esme would let nothing lessen the magic of the evening. There on the riverfront, she and Al sipped water laden with tasty seeds. The silvery twilight faded, and fairies flickered like fireflies. Al offered Esme a tasty tuber under the Three Birches. She sighed with pleasure.
Al raised his wings and drummed the water from happiness. Together they swam figures eights, intertwining their wakes, visible ripples of pleasure. Before Esme returned to her family’s nest on the far bank, her beak brushed Al’s farewell. A door had opened in her heart, perhaps Al would pass through one day.
sun sets on longings
solitary triangle of ripples
rushes bend in winds
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Note: This is my farewell haibun dedicated to Al, but it’s fictional, so I called it a flash fiction in the title. Al has run the weekly Haibun Thinking prompt, which sadly has ended. I hope you don’t mind me making free with your moniker, Al! I am a bit late with my entry, but I was preparing for and attending a writer’s conference. I have to scale back my blogging in May. I will be rewriting my children’s chapter book. Wish me luck! My plan is to blog in the evenings if I have any energy. 🙂
References:
http://diet.yukozimo.com/what-do-mallard-ducks-eat/
http://www.ask.com/question/what-do-mallard-ducks-eat
Pink Fairy Camo
Little girls ask, where do Pink Fairies hide?
Well, some days, they can’t decide.
Under mushrooms or behind leaves were spots tried,
but amongst the heather won by a landslide.
Copyright 2014 Brenda Davis Harsham
Friendly Fairy Tales 