Grandad and the Punatorium

My grandpappy loved puns.
He was considered a pundit on the topic.
He had a secret cache of punography stashed away in his room where he could be heard laughing maniacally late into the night. .
Sadly he was confined to a Punatorium in the hope of curing him of this terrible affliction.

Someone once said you can measure the value of a pun by the volume of groans it elicits.

Grandad had three which he dished out wherever he went.
A pony walks into a bar and croakily asks for a pint of beer. The barman has trouble understanding him. Sorry, says the pony, I’m a little hoarse.
Out on my walk today, I spotted a Dalmatian.
A teacher in a Year Nine English class, had trouble with a girl called Lichen. Give her time, a colleague said. She’ll grow on you.
Boom boom ! Get it? A well-full of groans.
 

Except

 

I barfed off and on last night

but my heart wasn’t in it.

If you are going to barf —

‘barf’ is a much nicer word than ‘vomit’ –

you’ve got to be committed,

not lackadaisical

like the time I went to the doctor

for anti-depressants and was refused

because ‘you are not depressed enough’.

I can’t give myself wholeheartedly

to anything, it seems.

‘Except your writing’,

my ex told me.

‘Except your writing’.

• pic courtesy of Pinterest

Iron Man at the Gym

 

 

Iron Man isn’t up to it today.

You can tell by the way he slopes around

in his baggy shorts and tee

dazed like he’s been smoking weed.

He dawdles a lot between reps.

Guzzles the urine coloured liquid to replace the energy he hasn’t used.

Plays with the machines like a cat with a mouse.

Jabbers at Stella how she isn’t doing it right,

to anyone really with a loose ear.

Truly he is more motor-mouth than Iron Man.

The Woods

The rash on my back

has dimmed:

angry red

to demure blush.

I wish I never

had thrush

in my left nostril —

in that cramped cave

hard for the air

to get through

but the meds kept

the wolf at bay,

subdued.

Almost out of the woods

like Red Riding Hood.

Days of Indolence and Roses

I’m really looking forward to today.

Today’s the day I don’t exercise.

Oh, I may lift a finger to pen a poem

or two,

stretch a limb to reach for the remote

or break into a walk to put out the bins

but that’s it.

Today the body gets its chance

to plonk itself down in the armchair of life

and not feel guilty.

Have a glass or two. Eat some chocolates.

Read ‘The New Yorker’.

A day of indolence and roses.

Lucky

Penny has a new pet.

A Labrador called Lucky.

It’s what she always wanted.

Well, almost.

He sits, jumps and spins around

and chases after frisbees.

Penny takes him for long walks

on the screen.

When he’s tired Penny puts him to bed.

His kennel is a black microchip.

When Penny slips it in the game console

each morning

Lucky comes out to play.

He woofs with delight and rubs

his snowy head against the screen.

Penny would love to cuddle him.

 

• pic courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

 

Barfing in the Bushes

There’s a cartoon of a couple in a car

tearing down a roller coaster

and the woman says to the man, “With you screaming all the time,

I can’t hear myself scream.”

Men are so much noisier than women, my partner says.

When I began barfing in the bushes at a country fair

She implored

, “Can’t you barf quietly? Everybody is watching.”

Barfing has no volume control,

I wanted to say

but I was too busy being sick.

 

• photo by Claire Satera on Unsplash

 

On Reading Carolyn

All week I have been reading Carolyn,

Her chapbook of twenty poems focused

on one anatomical feature — the ankle.

 

How could anyone do that? I wondered.

Breasts, yes, the penis, body parts

with a sexual agenda. But the ankle?

 

I read on. Carolyn fractured hers

recently in a fall so that provided the bones

of the material.

 

Wonderful, warm, poems,

inventive and insightful that trace her

journey towards wellness.

 

My favourite?

‘Zero Weight Bear’ with its zen-like title and

witty word-play. ‘Gravity Sucks’ runs a gamut

of emotions but ends like the collection itself

on an optimistic note.

 

• books can be purchased through the publisher: Ginninderra Press

Which Came First?

 

The trouble is I can’t let go.

I go in for a scan and am and told

they will contact me in due course.

Within days I hear nothing and think of phoning back.

How many days does it take to read a scan?

Persistence is a virtue but so too is Patience.

How to balance one against the other?

I phone back anyway.

I’m put on hold.

I’m always put on hold when I practice persistence.

Perhaps it’s a lesson.

Perhaps I should listen..

When does being persistent become pesky?

It’s tricky being human.

All Fours

 

Hey! He said. Why are those bozos off the leash and I’m not?

You have Attitude! I answered.

Oh great! People with Attitude should be leashed? What about rappers, revolutionaries, politicians with morals?

There are no such things, I said, as politicians with morals.

You got that one right, he said. And anyway, what about you? You have Attitude. Perhaps you should be on a leash.

Perhaps, I smiled.

Look, he said, let’s change places, just for five minutes. That’s fair, isn’t it?

I had to concede that it was.

Hey! The collar’s a bit tight.

He loosened it a little.

So off we toddled along the beach, he on his hinds, me on all fours, the three bozos scattering seagulls.