Best Cropper Poems
I accidentally let one loose
A ripe for roasting, fattened goose!
The ganders in Orwellian mode
Honked out the news in gaggled code.
Rash Farmer Giles, blood red with rage
Would not be easy to assuage
And goslings flapped their wings in fear
As if to say ‘Get out of here!’
The rooster crowed with all his might
To publicize my sorry plight
And terror-stricken piglets squealed
As rifle cocked, he left the field.
I turned and fled: there’d be no grace
For farmer Giles had picked up pace.
But then, a crack, a curse ; a whopper!
Old Farmer Giles had come a cropper!
This close escape I did embrace
For he had run a wild goose chase!
And as I raised a thankful sigh
A cackling form went flying by!
Competition entry : I accidentally let one loose : Charles Messina 22 July N/A
Applicable Not Applicable Contests Poetry Contest : sponsored by Richard Lamoureux
19.05.19
The day my life went so crazy
Was when I laid eyes on Daisy
She was an old sow
Who mooed like a cow
And drove all farmhands crazy
We tried to put her in a field
But sadly that pig wouldn’t yield
She’d sit down in her sty
And she wouldn’t comply
Her stubbornness would be revealed
I said Daisy you will come a cropper
The farmer will get you with a chopper
Daisy sat and chewed grass
And got mud on her a s s
Soon Daisy became quite a whopper
Old farmer Bill sharpened his knife
And showed the honed blade to his wife
He said it is time now
I must kill a fat sow
His poor wife just ran for her life!
The farmer went out to the shed
When Daisy saw him how just fled
She hid behind a bull
To escape a quick cull
I’m relieved there was no bloodshed!
N/A in The Day My Life Went Whacko Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Caren Krutsinger
03/28/30
Back in the day when kids could just play
Without the fear of being stolen away,
We would be out at almost first light
Only in for our meals until it were night.
Football and cricket both in their season,
Just to be out was a good enough reason.
You could run down the entry trying to hide,
It weren't full of junk, people then had pride.
Our Mum's donkey stoned steps, straight as a die,
If you stood on 'em wet, a clip made you cry.
Even the binmen were all trained in their skill,
A brush and shovel was there to pick up the spill.
All the tradesmen knew to deliver proper, no lip,
If they were cheeky or late,no Christmas tip.
At Kitties Greengrocer us lads would be keen,
To be picked on a Saturday to keep the place clean.
Down in the cellar we'd go and boxes we'd stack,
If it wasn't done right you didn't come back.
Those picked for the shop sometimes came a cropper,
The hardest job there was filling that huge spud hopper.
We got maybe a tanner or bob if the job was well done,
Bellies were full and we got stuff to take home to Mum.
Not many toys,but with a bat n ball we had fun all day,
Back in the day when kids could just play.
© Dave Timperley 3 October 2016
** Apologies for anyone unfamiliar with the metaphors used, they're quite British ***
Most people in life work for someone
as all the statistics have shown
but I thought I'd go out and start up by myself
as an entrepreneur, go it alone.
My radio shop called in the receivers,
someone got in and all the stock stole,
so I switched to creating a unique shampoo
but that all went down the plug hole.
I started a wallpaper business
but that quickly went to the wall
My pet grooming venture has gone to the dogs
And my parachute school took a fall.
My submarine business went under,
my brake shoe shop, that hit the skids,
the paper shop folded, boat builder ran aground
but I wasn't surprised when it did.
The detergent idea is all washed up,
and my driving instructor school crashed,
my water filtration is in liquidation
and dustbin cleaning business got trashed.
My hairdressers, that came a cropper,
I thought that would do well the most,
then my skills as a medium,
nobody did need 'em,
and that has now given up the ghost.
My last chance is growing tobacco,
as that should appeal to some folk,
it does sound quite appealing,
but I have a bad feeling
that the whole thing will go up in smoke.
Toys from Yesteryear
Sitting very quietly, looking at a blank page
Prompted me to pen a poem about toys that were all the rage
I had some wooden jigsaw blocks when I was only two
In a wooden box with a shiny brass clasp
And a picture of Winnie the Pooh
I remember at the age of six, when I was given some stickle bricks
Plastic shapes so colourful, with brushes of small plastic fingers
Making a train of red, yellow and green, the memory of it still lingers
Then at the age of seven, I remember ‘coming a cropper'
When dared by my cousins to bounce up the street
On their big and orange space-hopper
When I was eight, my favourite toy was a plastic daredevil skydiver
Many parachute jumps from the top of the stairs, that guy was a true survivor
When I was nine, the Spirograph, a drawing toy based on gears,
Was my favourite toy to play with, watching marvellous patterns appear
At ten years old I found building with Meccano lots of fun
Metal strips and gears and nuts and bolts, invented in 1901
When I was eleven the Rubik’s Cube was really all the rage
With coloured squares, six sides of nine, a puzzle for any age
At the age of twelve, Shinsai Mystery was my fave
Two eight-hinged polyhedra could be folded into many shapes
At the age of thirteen, my baby brother was born
His favourite toy was Lego, my love of building things was reborn
There are many toys of yesteryear, would take ages to mention the rest
But for me, after all these years, Lego will always be the best
Another Advent of the Same Old Events
(Apropos December, 2016)
In this new season of Advent,
We still face
The same old weary events;
It’s still all about race.
Strange fruits lay rotting
Along the treed street;
We still can’t escape the spotting—
Wherever we go, justice we never meet.
Daily courts of law remain a mockery;
Our shaded lives still don’t matter—
In our modern share cropper democracy,
Equal justice is just idle chatter.
If to this you don’t really agree,
It’s evident—you don’t look like me.
MUM EXPLAINS GRASSHOPPER FOREBEARS
Your daddy? Well, he had no money ,
Was skinny and boney, but just gorgeous, Honey,
A real grasshopper’s grasshopper.
Spent his days, unafraid to come a cropper,
Hiding on a cornstalk in a field (you probably heard)
Listening out for combines or a hungry bird.
Your papa learned to hop...junior grade..right and proper
Then was quickly promoted to senior hopper,
But oh dear he went on vacation in Mexico
One of those impulse things, you know :
Free ride in a truck, camping under tarpaulin,
But ended up as a chapuline*
His brother Joe was another hunk -
Defied the catcher nets – he had *****.
Fancied him myself (before your dad),
But he was too wild, adventurous, real bad.
Most famous member of our family was Uncle Joe -
(Now under glass in the botanical museum, Ohio.)
.........................................................................
Note
Chapuline is a delicacy of grasshoppers - eaten in Mexico
Leaves fall in the Fall.
Leaves flump in the Downtick.
Leaves flop in the Glide.
Leaves founder in the Comedown.
Leaves descend and drop in the Tumble.
Leaves nosedive and lurch in the Downflow.
Leaves pitch and capsize in the Forced Landing.
Leaves topple and cascade in the Gravitation.
Leaves abseil and rappel in the Descent.
Leaves coast and sideslip in the Downrush.
Leaves skid and avalanche in the Dropping.
Leaves swoop and plunge in the Coast.
Leaves settle and precipitate in the Cropper.
Leaves glissade in the Glissando.
. . . where's a rake when I need it?
Hocus Pocus, Balderdash,
Newspapers print horror and trash.
Oligarchs hungry for extra cash,
To add to their enormous stash.
Nervous police officers feel the heat,
When they caution terrorists in the street,
They no longer walk the beat,
They have cars with safety seats.
Police cars drive around at night,
Warning louts that curse and fight,
Often these thugs take flight
Making the cops chase them with all their might.
Sadly the world needs cops.
We will need them until the crime rate stops.
When you see someone coming, a cropper
Phone the station, and they will send a copper.
She’s not exactly a stunner
Or a beauty contest top-runner.
Sometimes she slips up on grammar.
But is that a reason to damn 'er?
Some men want gold and not copper,
And more often than not come a cropper.
George married a pretty blue stocking.
That divorce case, how horribly shocking.
Giles got hitched to a bunny,
Who soon hopped off with his money.
Cyril, with his eye for good looks,
Is now happy with someone who cooks.
Poor Herbert fell for a hooker,
And then most sadly mistook 'er
For his faithful, his heaven-sent wife.
(In fact, they were hell-bent on strife).
Such examples truly are many.
You can get two belles for a penny.
But I’ll keep to good-hearted Jenny.
Plain Jenny, you’ll do for a life.
Foreword: My regular radio station recently
held a phone in show on the subject of
Veganism... The following was inspired by
some of the more colourful callers.
Purely for fun, no maliçe intended... Your Honour
Vegans, Damned Vegans
He sneered when he called me an animal
He frowned when he called me a cannibal
He called me a killer and said I’m misguided
I shouldn’t eat meat because HE had decided
His pompous decision was so single minded
I showed him my fist... the fight was one sided
For pulses and beans were all he had eaten
So one little tap and the fellow was beaten
I looked in the mirror and made a big grin
Examined my mouth and the canines therein
For tearing up meat, we got them in pairs
Was that evolution or the big man upstairs
Why ever we got them, got them we did
Some people file them or keep them well hid
If your God designed them then that’s problem solved
Unless you deny the way you’ve evolved
If there was a vote which the vegans then won
There’d be a surplus, I hope they have fun
When we give all the vegans their very own gun
To shoot all the cows, it would need to be done
The chicken, the turkey and also the sheep
Superfluous now, so no need to keep
Thanks to the vegans they’ll all come a cropper
I hope that those vegans are good with a chopper
But just to show willing I thought I might try it
I put myself on a strict vegan diet
A vegan for breakfast, a vegan for lunch
A vegan whenever I fancy a munch
But one irate vegan went off the deep end
He seemed a bit miffed that I’d eaten his friend
But quitting my diet soon silenced his moans
I’ve stopped eating vegans... too many bones
FOOTLES
Farmer’s Marketeer
Cropper
Shopper
-----------------------
Stoned in Stonehenge
Fluid
Druid
-----------------------------
Autumn Breeze
Crisper
Whisper
-----------------------------
Twins
Double
Puddle
-----------------------------
Stripper
Fresher
Dresser
--------------------------------------
two brain cells walk into a bar
Drinkers
Thinkers
----------------------------------------
John G. Lawless
8/25/2014
The old black man plowed the ground in that baking sun
And sang all those old gospel songs
The rows were straight as an arrow all through the field
As I knew this was where his heart belongs
He was just a share cropper and a mighty fine man
And I never saw him angry or raging mad
All I ever heard was the songs he was singing
Plowing that mule in that field owned by my dad
He rested at the end of row number two
And drank from the water jar I brought
He nodded his satisfaction, then turned that mule around
As old Julep did the best at what she was taught
When he wasn’t plowing he and I sometime a go fishing
As he’d always caught tenfold more than me
He’d laugh when I shook my sweating head
And say while laughing, “it be’s what it be’s.”
Every year the old man would be seen in the old field
It seemed to be twenty acres or more
And his wife always waved as he neared their house
As she rocked in the shade close to the front door
One day he didn’t make it to the field to plow again
And my heart was saddened to the core
He had passed in the night into his final rest
And I knew that those songs I would hear no more
It’s been thirty years since I was down on the farm
But I went back just yesterday
The fields are all grown up, seems no one planted there
And my heart was broken and I couldn’t stay
I went back to the city back to the grit and grime
But I think of those days long gone but not forgotten
And I see the old man smiling as he’s out plowing
And soon all that white in that big field of cotton
Rudolph has got a red nose
From going where no reindeer goes
The roof that had ice on
Belonged to Mike Tyson
It ended up coming to blows
*****
This book about reindeer, I’ve recently found
Says reindeer eat leaves and grass from the ground
There’s also a chapter or two
That should give us humans a clue
They never eat raisins where rabbits abound
*****
A reindeer should not pull a sleigh
That’s what I heard Santa Claus say
The smells that they make
Catch him in their wake
And then when they tinkle they spray
*****
Santa’s just bought a new chopper
He’s learning to fly good and proper
The chopper’s a winner
No turkey for dinner
So Rudolph has just come a cropper
He was just out riding his chopper,
All of a sudden he came a cropper.
A head on collision with another lad.
His head hit the kerb at a terrific rate
The trauma he had, left him in a state.
When he came to in A&E they did find,
The injury he suffered had made him blind.
He screamed and reacted as any child would,
They needed to calm him for an X-ray check up
His fear gave him strength and he tried to get up,
It took strong men to hold him down on the bed,
While they calmed him down to examine his head.
The doctor said he would check again the next day.
His parents were with him throughout the night,
They informed us of his terrible plight.
He was blind and frightened,as he lay on the bed,
Covered in bruises where hands clamped him down.
We were so scared for him and so very far away,
The only thing we could do was to pray and pray.
We prayed all night for his injuries to allay.
When came the dawn and the doctor came back,
Our prayers had been answered as only God could.
Our grandsons sight returned, we thanked Him as one,
Not only did his sight return, every bruise was gone.
His memory too of that whole event was erased,
We again both said, God Be Praised.
© Dave Timperley 27/09/2018
This happened to our grandson some years ago. The same lad received his BA & Masters degree this year from Swansea University.