MAD KANE’S HUMOR BLOG

Trash Day
By Madeleine Begun Kane

On  trash day I set a tv
On the curb and before I could flee,
A neighborhood jerk
Yelled, “How well does it work?”
Guess he wanted a signed guaranty.

Streets lined with garbage:
Discarded chairs, broken lamps.
Scavengers’ treasure.

(Prompted by  Easy Street’s To the Curb and Writer’s Island Treasure.)

Technorati Tags: Garbage Humor, Annoying Neighbors,  Trash Poems, Scavenger Verse, Sanitation Day Satire

As I shower
Poems pour out from parts unknown,
Demanding to be shared.

Still, I linger.
Verses taunt me: “Write us down.
Your thoughts, they must be bared.”

End of shower.
Laptop beckons. Towel’s dropped.
I’m free — my poem’s been aired.

(Sara asks: What Poetry Means To Me.  Now you have my answer.)

Technorati Tags: Poetry’s Meaning, Inspiration, Free Verse

My resolution:
No more resolutions
I can’t keep, like this one.

If you missed my satirical New Year’s Resolutions Contract, it’s here.  And I hope you’ll join in on my latest haiku and limerick prompt, whose theme is lies and deception.

(This haiku was inspired by Sunday Scribblings and by Read Write Poem, which is back in business thanks to Deb of Stoneymoss.)

Technorati Tags: New Year’s Resolutions Verse, Sunday Scribblings, Read Write Poem, Holiday Haiku Prompts

Today’s limerick and haiku theme is lies and deception. First, my limerick: 

“Your excuse simply can’t be believed.
You’re a liar! I feel quite deceived,”
Said the gal, as she wept,
To her lover, who’d slept
With her mother. (I guess she was peeved.)

And now, my haiku:

People who maintain
That they are always honest
Are surely lying.

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to write a limerick or haiku (or both) about lies and deception. When you’ve posted your verse, please return here and add a direct link to your themed poetry, using Mr. Linky.

(If you need some tips on limerick or haiku writing, I link to some helpful sites here.)

Technorati Tags: Lies, Deception, Betrayal, Relationship Haiku, Lover’s Quarrel

I love 3 Word Wednesday! Just like last week, it presents three words to be used in a poem, and a haiku immediately writes itself in the word order presented.  Weird, huh?

This week’s words are button, luck, and pretend:

Button up your lips
And, with luck, we can pretend
This never happened.

Technorati Tags: Secrecy Haiku, Silent Verse, 3 Word Wednesday

When prompted to use the words curious, eventually, and shower in a poem, this haiku more or less wrote itself:

I am curious:
Will you eventually
Shower?  I hope so.

And here’s another haiku, this one inspired by an earth-themed prompt:

There’s no earthly way
I’d ever vote for global
Warming deniers.

Technorati Tags: 3 Word Wednesday Prompt, Writers Island, Cleanliness Humor,  Shower Verse, Global Warming, Earth Poetry

Ev’ning argument.
Sleepless night, anger unchecked.
Early morning frost.

(Probably not the sort of frost this prompt has in mind.)

Note: There’s still time to participate in my latest haiku and limerick prompt.

Technorati Tags: Argument Haiku, Anger Haiku, Frost

Sorry for the late post!  My father’s very ill, and I’ve been traveling between New York and North Carolina. 

Today’s limerick and haiku themes are wine and spirits or the New Year or, if you prefer, both. Here’s my wine and spirits limerick: 

The bartender offered cheap brandy.
“No fine cognac?” I whined—wasn’t handy.
So I had to decline,
Mulled and ordered dry wine—
Told the barkeep, “Your cab tastes like candy!”

Here’s a wine snob haiku, the first of today’s two haiku:

Decant, sniff, sip, spit—
Wine connoisseur’s ritual.
I’d rather just drink.

And here’s a haiku that combines both themes:

Champagne bubbles dance.
Spirited revelers toast.
A new year’s welcomed.

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to write a limerick or haiku (or both) about today’s theme(s). When you’ve posted your verse, please return here and add a direct link to your themed poetry, using Mr. Linky.

(If you need some tips on limerick or haiku writing, I link to some helpful sites here. And you can find my New Year’s Resolutions humor here.)

Technorati Tags: new years, cognac, brandy, wine snob humor, wine and spirits, champagne

Welcome to my 2nd Poetry Prompt. Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to write a limerick or haiku (or both) on this week’s theme, which is Multitasking. When you’ve posted your poem, please return here and add a direct link to your multitasking-related verse, using Mr. Linky.

Here’s my multitasking limerick, which was inspired by this news story: Runny Pasta Sauce Nabs Hit And Run Driver.

Just Desserts
By Madeleine Begun Kane

It’s risky to drive while you eat,
Most especially pasta with meat:
Slurping red sauce is rash—
You might very well crash
And leave evidence trails head to feet.

And here’s my multitasking themed haiku:

Lectured to not do
Two things at once, he obeyed
And always did three.

(If you need some tips on limerick or haiku writing, I link to some helpful sites here.)

Limerick and Haiku Prompts Participants

Technorati Tags: Limerick and Haiku Prompts, Multitasking Humor, Automobile Humor, Food Verse, Car Limerick, Poetry Prompts, Driving Poetry

I’ve been having so much fun drawing inspiration from poetry prompts, that I thought I’d launch my own.  And since I’m seriously (and unseriously) into limericks and haiku, I’m focusing on those two forms.

Your assignment, should you choose to accept it, is to write a limerick or haiku (or both) on this week’s theme: Annoying Advice.  When your poem’s taken root, please return to this post and add a direct link to your themed poem using Mr. Linky.  

Here’s my Annoying Advice limerick:

Chin Up
By Madeleine Begun Kane

“Keep your chin up, and things will be fine.
Just act brave. Do not bitch, flinch, or whine.
You have the right stuff.
You just have to hang tough.”
Does anyone fall for that line? 

And here’s my Annoying Advice haiku:

When somebody says
“You sure you want to do that?”
Doubt perversely fades.

Technorati Tags: Limerick and Haiku Prompts, Poetry Prompts, Annoying Advice

This week’s Friday Five asks us to use these five words in a poem or story: mustard, piano, elastic, moat, and notorious.  As you can see, it set me off in a rather silly direction:

The Eccentric Pianist
By Madeleine Begun Kane

The notoriously eccentric pianist
Played electric stride piano
With an elastic reach worthy of Fats Waller
While perched on the deck of his moat-surrounded castle,
Then dined on a meal of mustard sandwiches.

For a post and limerick about a real (and not-nearly-so-eccentric) stride pianist, check out my Ode To Judy Carmichael.

(You can find more of my music humor here.)

Technorati Tags: Friday Five, Fats Waller, Stride Piano, Judy Carmichael, Music Verse, Poetry Prompts

It’s hard to believe, but snow globes (even tiny ones) are a carry-on baggage no-no. I’m not kidding — an  airline luggage inspector actually seized our miniscule Vegas memento. Why?  It seems that bomb-makers can do something really, really scary with the fraction-of-an-ounce of water contained in an eight-dollar snow globe.

And that brings me to my latest haiku:

Seizing your snow globe
For being an airline threat
Doesn’t hold water.

(You can find more of my travel and vacation humor here, and more container haiku here.)

Technorati Tags: Snow Globes, Vacation Verse, Travel Mementos, Airport Rules, Luggage Regulations, Vacation Fun, Airline Humor, Gift Haiku

Yes, I know this is supposed to be a humor blog.  But this “misspent youth” poetry prompt inspired me to write a serious limerick:

Misspent Youth?
By Madeleine Begun Kane

We tend to be charmed and beguiled
By a talented prodigy child—
One who labors all day
With his gifts on display,
Stifling youth, which is meant to be wild.

Technorati Tags: Child Prodigy Verse, Talented Kids, Misspent Youth

Enough with the light limericks for today!  Here’s some heavy (for me) haiku, inspired by a handful of poetry prompts.

First up:  It’s A Blog Eat Blog World serves us gravy as inspiration, while Weekend Wordsmith hands us the word hand to run with, and Writers Island provides the friendship.  Put the three together and you get:

A hand in friendship
Would please and gratify me.
Love would be gravy.

Next, 3WW asks us to use the words compensate, modern and radio in poem or prose.  My classical music background probably had something to do with this haiku using that trio of words:

Modern radio
Fails to compensate for our
Dying symphonies.

Finally, Haiku Sunday requests haiku about belonging:

All my belongings—
The ones the thieves didn’t steal—
Scattered and estranged.

Technorati Tags: Poetry Prompts, Musical Haiku, Theft Haiku, Criminal Poetry, Friendship Verse

Problem Poetry (Limerick)
By Madeleine Begun Kane

“Your verses belong in the can,”
Said the prof to a man. “They don’t scan.
The problem’s your beat,
Plus your poems have no meat.”
I’m guessing he wasn’t a fan.

I was prompted to write this by Blog Friday, where you can find more problematic poetry and prose.

(You can find more of my poetry here.)

Technorati Tags: Problems, Poetry Education, Poem Humor, Professors, College Humor

There’s nothing quite like a tough mental challenge.  And I sure had a good time with this one, prompting me to write something (in my case, a limerick) using these three words: phone, stumbled and windy.

The Joys Of Winter
By Madeleine Begun Kane

It was windy and snowy.  I stumbled.
Then I fell and my keys and phone tumbled
And slid down the ice.
I yelled words not so nice.
“How rude!” an old passerby grumbled.

And speaking of winter, it’s almost time to start worrying about your office Christmas party.

Technorati Tags: Winter Humor, Seasonal Humor, Weather, Bad Manners, Poetry Prompts