“A No Brainer”
If balancing a checkbook is a no brainer, why can’t I do it
“Hit below the belt”
As a guy I don’t even want to go there
“I’m all ears”
No wonder I can’t smell or see
“Play it by ear”
No wonder I cant play banjo, I’ve been using my fingers
“Think outside the box”
I tried that once and they closed the lid on me
“Plenty of fish in the sea”
If so, why can’t I catch any?
“Put lipstick on a pig”
Do pigs even have lips?
Categories:
idioms, humorous,
Form: Free verse
More Texas Idioms
Miracle Man
November 9, 2023
Often my neighbor needs a little reproving,
“He’s always lying if his lips are moving”.
When he gives me news I consider the source,
this guy is “windier than a corn fed horse”
He doesn’t always like what I have to say
and quickly replies ”every dog has his day.”
Sometimes what I say induces his growls,
But I don’t worry, “a hit dog always howls.”
He’s been this way since he was half grown,
I once heard it said “he lies like a tombstone”.
He said I’m handier “Than hip pockets on a hog,”
and last year “His trees we’re bribing his dog”.
He’s such a liar “he’d beat you senseless,
and tell God you fell off a horse”
Categories:
idioms, how i feel, life,
Form: Couplet
The Real Truth
With Texas Idioms
Miracle Man
October 22, 2023
Saturday nights in Haskell was always a battle,
some thought Ruff might be “all hat and no Cattle”.
He oft searched for Jack to settle some long ago spat,
Ruff was bigger “than a boarding house cat”.
Tom you ask, once more, how big was the other?
“so big he looked like he ate his brother”.
But an altercation with Jack some saw as a toss up,
for Jack was said to be “Faster than small town gossip”.
Everyone feared Jack and with him built rapport,
though he was not “the sharpest knife in the drawer”.
They both started drinking upon leaving the house,
and soon, both appeared “drunk as a meadow mouse”.
At times I’ve seen both acting just like some smurf,
thoroughly “confused as a goat on AstroTurf”.
The fights they had got them no gold buckles,
but sometimes “it would just cloud up and rain knuckles”.
Back then I was plain stupid without a disguise,
“and so narrow minded I could look through
a keyhole with both eyes”.
God is good!
Categories:
idioms, bullying, humor, humorous,
Form: Couplet
Texas Idioms
Miracle Man
8/9/2023
I once had a friend who saw opportunities dwindling,
he was always, “burning his green wood for kindling.”
My polite way of saying that he wasted his time,
he couldn’t “buy a flea a coat if it just cost a dime.”
He was “dumber than dirt with a head like a log,”
When sober he was “handier than hip pockets on a hog.”
He “thought the sun came up just to hear him crow,”
and I thought this man had “a great face for radio.”
He was “as yellow as mustard but without the bite,”
and “if melted down couldn’t be poured into a fight.”
So he wouldn’t be someone I’d ever take to a battle,
In short, this old friend “was all hat and no cattle.”
“he was so narrow minded
he could look through a keyhole with both eyes.”
Categories:
idioms, humor, humorous,
Form: Quatrain
I would love to
speak all languages
except the one of the vipers...!
Categories:
idioms, allegory, allusion, appreciation, language,
Form: Epigram
“I suggest we break the ice”, the interloper said.
I began chopping with a snow axe, and she laughed.
You must have been born with a silver spoon, she threw out.
I threw the snow axe at her; irritated she had called it a spoon.
She ducked, as cool as a cucumber.
I was irritated now.
“I’ve got your number,” she told me.
I had no idea how she had gotten it.
“I was not born yesterday,” she added.
I knew from her wrinkles she was not lying.
“This is as easy as ABC,” she said. “You are transparent.”
I was not a happy camper now, she was getting under my skin.
“Hold your horses,” I told her. “You are coming on too strong.”
“You’ll be in hot water if you continue egging me on like this.”
She laughed. “Let me put a bug in your ear,” she said.
“Hot water is something I do best after falling through a hole in the ice.”
Categories:
idioms, word play,
Form: Free verse
The access to our dwelling
cascade
Love and...
leftovers
of a ray of light
and blackness...
dubious sentiment
evermore
toward and aside
from each other...
a double face within a frolic
in fearless truths
hatched from the
cust of the heart
foreseen
Written: September 30, 2022
Categories:
idioms, analogy, garden, home,
Form: Free verse
Common Wisdom is not really either. For example ..
1. Let the past bury the past
Can not be done that way.
Use funeral parlors, or celebrate a dead person's with memorial
When Jesus said similar words, "it was to rebuke a procrastinator, "Let the dead bury the dead." The living dead make much of human traditions including ceremonial matters. Real life is in God, his living word. Not in idols!
2. What goes around, cones around.
How much time you have?
If it's a shooting star, comet, quasar, or even an Everest climb, you need intervals at the very least.
Categories:
idioms, analogy, humor, jesus, science,
Form: Epitaph
Good morning, folks, welcome to my show.
Come rain or shine, I’ll tell you what you need to know.
Up north it’s raining cats and dogs; even farther up
toward the border there’s brewing a storm in a teacup.
But it will be lightening fast, yes, just a tease.
And after it has passed, everything will be a breeze.
In the central area, they’ll be chasing rainbows.
Not to steal the anchorman's thunder, that’s just how it goes.
Down south, they’ll take a rain check on the rain.
Incidentally, our governor is a weather vane!
My head may be in the clouds, but I predict tomorrow will be fine.
In fact, divine; in every region we’ll be on cloud nine.
March came in like a lamb, so I predict it goes out like a lion.
Tie your things down well; in the wind they may be flyin'.
March 19, 2022
For Matt Caliri's You're A Weather Forecaster Poetry Contest
Categories:
idioms, weather,
Form: Couplet
When the world was youthful
spiderwebs sang as they were spun.
Language was woven in the air
as accents of winds and trees
Untrammeled meadows annunciated
upon the lips of dens and burrows.
Fresh bathed daisies signed a speech
as they swayed,
buttercups birthed calligraphy’s of sunlight.
Words were idioms painted upon
the melodious leafage
of the up-risen and rising.
Then that shaggy brat
the primordial ape-man grunted forth,
translating its gripey gut
through a creaky tongue.
A mouth-made muse had begun.
A nascent poet boldly stood forth
rhyming would with could,
and the dumbest of his tribe
cheered him fit to bust
while the green grown world
shrugged and turned its back
in dismayed disgust.
Categories:
idioms, poetry,
Form: Free verse
Here’s idiomatic lines for nine.
Why does a stitch in time just save nine?
Why’s possession nine points of the law?
Indeed, why did the cat have nine tails?
Perhaps it’s because it had nine lives?
Why would someone go the whole nine yards?
Should cats and dogs be cats and canines?
Is this poem a nine days’ wonder?
If not, then I will be on cloud nine!
written 13 May 2021
checked with Poetry Soup syllable counter
Categories:
idioms, language, words,
Form: Free verse
Many people like poems written with ordinary words.
Some that jestfully tell about life in ordinary ways,
even though life is far from ordinary,
They want poems that lighten their days.
Enough with the highfalutin language, they say.
Start writing words common folks understand.
Bring back the use of everyday words.
Oh, you want idioms (words that are canned).
I love the feel of the silken poetic words,
that tickle the ears and whisper to the soul.
they wrap your thoughts in gossamer silk,
both pleasant and bitter their goal.
Writing poetry is a road strewn with boulders.
Life wrings itself out upon our pages.
Where there's beauty, we're often drawn to the dark
found hiding behind it on various stages.
We find ourselves writing about love that threatens,
or long ago left, storming out the door, kicking aside
hope like pebbles. Or, crawling out with a whimper and
a fearful glance, then running: words we cannot hide...
ordinary words.
Categories:
idioms, fear, life, poems, poetry,
Form: Rhyme
Britches' Idioms
Composed: by Miracle Man
1/27/2021
“Britches” is now just a has been, an “ol’ used to be,”
though “he’s loaded for bear” he remains carefree.
He’s faster than “a chicken on a Cheeto” at finger lickin,
life is tough, but “like a dead horse, he ain’t kickin.”
Once “tough as whet leather” he’s now top drawer,
but still tells “how the cow ate the cabbage” and more.
“From trimming tail feathers” he’s become somewhat scarred,
but like a cheap gun, “he shoots quick and kicks hard.”
“He’s as brave as the first man to eat an oyster” they say,
and “Britches” still believes, “that every dog has it’s day.”
“He was so busy you’d think he was twins” in his youth,
now “he has senior moments” being “long in the tooth.”
It’s been “A coon’s age” since life has been fun,
won’t be much longer until life’s “done and done.”
Categories:
idioms, age, life, time,
Form: Couplet
More Texas Idioms
(that have been around)
“since Heck was a pup”
Composed: by Tom
1/11/2021
Heck was “fat as a boarding house cat” and that’s no bunk,
some thought that he, was “tougher than stewed skunk.”
They said never play cards with this man called Heck,
cause “He’s on a first name basis with the bottom of the deck.”
He’s so crooked, “you can’t tell from his tracks if he’s coming or going,”
and if Heck says it’s hot its “afixin” to start snowing.
He’ll leave you feeling confused “as a goat on AstroTurf” or a dope,
I couldn’t tell if “I’d lost my mule or found a rope.”
The purpose of my visit was just to size up this brawler,
He lived “left past yonder” about “two hoots and a holler.”
I quickly saw that Heck was just mostly idle prattle,
that he was a man “who was all hat and no cattle”.
He was “yellow as mustard but without the bite,”
and “if he was melted down he couldn’t be poured into a fight”.
With visit over as I headed out I heard him say,
“never kick a Cow patty on a hot day.”
I’ve been “From here to there and back again,”
no more am I going, now that I’ve been.
Categories:
idioms, humor, humorous,
Form: Rhyme
When the world was youthful
spiderwebs sang as they were spun.
Language was woven in the air
as accents of winds and trees
conveyed by an eloquent sky.
Untrammeled meadows annunciated
upon the lips of dens and burrows
scooped by shrew, mole, and vole.
Fresh bathed daisies signed a speech
as they swayed,
buttercups birthed calligraphy’s of sunlight.
Giddy rills gave voice to fritillaries
that flew to the sun or moon.
Words were idioms painted upon
the melodious leafage
of the up-risen and rising.
Then that shaggy brat
the primordial ape it grunted forth,
translating its gripey gut
through the clack of a creaky tongue.
Guttural and gregarious
it learned to babble and
belch an oral discordance.
It yapped and yawped,
yawped and yapped
until a spoken language
verbosely pivoted to prolix
polluting the very airy air.
Then it was
that a nascent poet boldly stood
rhyming would with could
until even the dumbest of his tribe
understood
and cheered him fit to bust
while the green grown world
with all its idiomatic kin
lost the will to express
as before
for the fluent earth again.
Categories:
idioms, poetry,
Form: Free verse
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