There’s a worm on the berm
But I cannot confirm,
Without seeing it squirm,
If it’s dead.
Or perhaps it’s infirm
From a rare type of germ
Which affects it long-term
And will spread.
Either way, it’s absurd
To think twice, for a bird,
With its appetite spurred,
Will be led
To the place this occurred
And to which I referred
Where that bird, undeterred,
Will be fed.
I won’t mention the slug
Or the slow-moving bug
That I saw, ‘cause you’ll shrug -
‘Nuff’s been said!
There was an old man who disliked the world
Anyway, he pretended it because he was soft.
If a salesman was selling igloos, he would buy.
So, to protect himself, he had to fence himself in.
His wife always said, “he is a sucker for everyone”.’
His heart was so kind, people took advantage of it.
She closed him off from the world after a while.
Because he would go broke giving to others.
An artist, she had a gift with concrete.
She designed them a berm house with a look.
A gruff, mean, nasty old man with a beard face.
He dislikes the world, she motioned to her man.
Salespeople ran off, fleeing for their lives.
Most never knew they missed their easiest sale.
Husband was content too, for they had money now.
Keeping enough so they could retire comfortably.
There once was a cautious weird man named Berm
He was mortally so afraid of germ
No girl did he ever kiss
Saying I won’t get sick miss
Pressed her lips with fingers, thought there’s no harm.
_____________
May 14, 2023
Syllable count : 10/10/7/7/10 (HMS)
Contest : Funny, Bawdy Or Humerous Limerick
Sponsored by : Tania Kitchin
Outside the wind screams and moans. The snow on the ground joins forces with the snow in the air, taking flight across the frozen landscape until, out of breath, it falls in piles on the leeward side of some barn or berm or wall, resting there, awaiting the next gust to shape it. Inside we pull the covers closer, thankful for winter sheets. Warm, soft, fuzzy and comforting. Not the cool, cold, slippery sheets of summer. Winter sheets.
distant wolves sniff at the winds,
sense what you do not.
your death hums in the air!
pings run through your heart
to raise a berm of hair!
Baskerville hounds now shift
from lope to lunge.
their thirst for blood has come!
rapacious tongues make clear
your death is in their mouths!
lagoon sand berm lanced
by tide and waves oozed its pus
flushed clean by sea fizz
The swish of some passing cars unnerving me still
With the rapid clack of my windshield wipers,
When, suddenly, I felt a most unwanted chill
Like the rapid hiss of a hundred captured vipers.
And I knew, at the worst time possible, my tire
Right front, passenger side, was now a crumble,
Just when my AAA card was about to expire,
So, I steered it to the berm feeling the flat rumble.
I sat sullen, waiting for the downpour to retire,
While several vehicles zip by me at ridiculous speeds
None of them, I understood, stopping to inquire
Why I was pulled over to the side … or my needs.
When the rain finally abated, and I shuffled outside
Four creaking vehicles stopped, offering me a ride!
written October 17, 2021
especially for "Onamatopoeia" Poetry Contest
sponsored by Emile Pinet
[Rhymes checked with rhymezone.com]
A baby salamander
In the middle of the road
Seemed in danger of a horrifying end,
So I thought I would transport him
To the grasses on the berm
Or a car would squish him coming ‘round the bend.
When I placed a leaf before him
He resisted crawling on
So I prodded just a bit ‘til he came ‘round,
But he wasn’t quite secure
Because when I picked up the leaf
That little creature fell right off and hit the ground.
After several more attempts
He’d made it safely to the side
And I left him where the traffic wouldn’t go,
Yet I wondered if perhaps
He wished I hadn’t interfered
Though, of course, there isn’t any way to know.
There's a sound of lightening;
A raging storm;
A pit vast in heat a fiery berm;
Whatever happen to the music maker;
The leader of the angelic choir;
Now near the muck and mire;
Who knows the lost one;
And what will become of him;
Just where is the lost one
And where is he hiding
Whom are the lost one
And where shall he go
Where is the lost one I want to know;
How can the lost one lead me somewhere;
Down to the fiery pits of a razing hell
Oh! well
The lost one can be found;
In the burning, burning, burning
pits of" Hell"
10/5/21
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr. 2021©
Mystical ghost of night
Of pale death’s milky glow
On sun’s life, contingent
Neon-gray you sketch black
Soothe the belligerent
Mystical ghost of night
How you shine subterfuge!
As the captious eye sees,
dead dreams behoove none
Opal wanes on jet seas...
Mystical ghost of night
Wax with light-avarice!
Mock shadowed reflections,
oft morphing as your form,
on nightshade convictions...
Mystical ghost of night
New moon’s temerity
Sacrosanct nothingness
How you foreshadow Earth
as fried out emptiness
(9/17/2021: '85 Bluewater 51 Willow Berm. Was titled Mystical for M contest by Constance la France)
Lake Wollumboola is intermittent.
A coastal dune lagoon, enclosed by berm of sand.
Its basin a drowned creek-scoured depression.
This tiny lake is perched above high tide, vulnerable.
Its survival lies at the whim
of wind-blown and sea-thrown sand.
It's long term fate short-lived as its filling up
with sediment, weed, detritus and muck.
This little lagoon among the dunes
is mecca for migratory birds.
The curlew and buff-breasted sandpiper,
The long-toed stint, pied oyster catcher and little tern.
These vulnerable birds depend on the vulnerable lake.
They arrive on-cue from long-hall flights.
Alight and feeds in the shallows.
Mate, breed and lay eggs in vulnerable places
on the open beach and shore.
They squat on eggs and fledge their young,
and when the time comes, migrate back
with young yearling in tow,
to whence they came.
They book return migratory flights to
Lake Wollumboola each year,
hoping it survives vulnerable
for another year,
and hoping its time is not yet up.
I.
Ode the thrill of a tango
curled in clutches sleek
Elegance, a prerequisite
Add on a spun euphoria
Nimble is a turgid swoon!
Arms conduct to the aria
New skin, feels no tocsin
It's deeply in a you and i
Glazed, to the tightening
and a strangling organza
Necked into a suffocation
So go the tunnel deaths…
(1/27/2021: '02 Silverton MY; Alameda ...contest theme was murder in the tunnel)
II.
Ornately, I gild over my days a’ la fresco
Carefully, I wield molten gold, enigmatic
Elaborate must these life undulations be
as metallic sheen screens all insipid aura
New cantankerous crack? Just weld upon
and smooth the jagged with flowing flora
Now the feckless plaster sparkles golden
I spurn mawkish, like the silvered literati
glossing my craven, to caverns gleaming
Aurum weaves, in its narcissistic miasma
Nothing malodorous in self-love / loathin’
So imperious my bombastic art, it glazes!
(8.17.21 Redone at Willow Berm and DBW; theme was Craig’s Broken contest relating to Kintsugi)
off the gander, down feather basks on the free breeze, divorced
(8/24/2020: '02 Sea Ray 560; Willow Berm)
Those secs that sizzled!
Infinity lies perturbed
Zilches the present...
Many miles of love...
It’s extraordinary
No regrets at last!
(8/20/2020: ’06 Sea Ray Sundancer 44; Willow Berm 8/19)
My cupboard would not be, by any standard held
considered neat or clean, nor free of crumb or dust.
But stores I keep abound, enough to nourish me
and keep me warm on nights, when hope is all but gone.
Across the hall there sits a basement door, unlocked
Where things that should not be await the darkened night
Their thrumming breath pulsates between the door and sill
And sunlight dances on the kitchen floor all day
My weary hands explore and blindly fish about
With each extended palm I strain to make a choice
The shelving seems to stretch as if to mock and scold
And I retreat and turn and kick that basement door
And when the sun has stretched itself from end to end
She’ll tiptoe from the scene and leave her stage deplete.
To let a chill set forth above the wooden berm
beneath the door unlatched, ajar, corrupt, contempt.
A stirring from behind the cupboard door escapes.
Subconscious brutes waylay the precious things I keep
as rations moan and shriek with horrors that don’t speak.
I’d sleep but I cannot for all that heinous noise.
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