I look at my portfolio;
It makes me want to hurl.
For one day, all is calm and fine;
The swine then eats the pearl!
I do not mean to sound complaint
Like some great oafish churl,
But ups and downs like these of late?
My stomach flops and twirls.
I think that I may now know why;
I’m going to take a whirl:
The market tracks the hormones of
A thirteen-year-old girl!
Categories:
oafish, emotions,
Form: Rhyme
Phantom ceiling squeaks
impish night owl’s egg and spoon
race cancelled by ghost
thunder rolls startle
mischievous sprites in a trance.
spine-tingling plot now unfolds at lightening speed
Milky Way spins an oafish chuckle.
Categories:
oafish, art, color, dream, fun,
Form: Free verse
Narcissism shows its ugly head in so many ways
Sharp put-downs to show one’s superiority
A heightened sense of one’s importance, and
Usurping, whenever possible, another’s authority.
Self-deceiving, and never able to admit defeat
Being in love with themselves, misplaced vanity
Slipping into unbelievable fantasy and self-delusion
If not properly treated, it can lead to insanity.
Taking credit for the accomplishments of others
Thinking that nobody can do anything better
Setting oneself up as the expert in everything
Even playing the role of a renowned jet-setter.
One-upmanship, of course, is a favorite ploy
Having done anything you have done and more
Must be noticed, front row, in every picture
At every gathering the consummate bore.
Do not believe words from a narcissist’s mouth
For lying is second nature to the oafish boor
Constantly engage in building themselves up
Most of them are rotten right down to the core.
Written June 13, 2021
Categories:
oafish, mental illness, people, psychological,
Form: Quatrain
My buddy who was quite oafish and wasn't to keen
decided to drive his old clunker of a car
that didn't have any seats to be seen.
So with great effort he sticks his head out the drivers window while in a squat
and with a toothless grin he yells, "Watch this!"
Speeding at 70 in a 40 he flies over a large speed bump going at least 15 feet
up in the air!
Out the window he flew
like a ball bouncing along
luckily no splat!
Contest sponsored by: Caren Krutsinger
Happy Haibun
Categories:
oafish, car, cool, crazy, flying,
Form: Haibun
Listening to the lapping of the waves
complementing the murmurs of bench folks.
Doves are cooing, pigeons are scurvy knaves
patrolling the sand, clumsy oafish crooks!
Trade winds gentle on your skin, lover's kisses.
Wedding parties come and go, tourists pay
top dollar to eager photo misses.
No one hurries, time ordered to "stay!"
and it seems grudgingly to want to do.
Wind surfers carving initials in air
and surf with abandon, try something new.
All I could wish for without a care.
Reflect on a brief moment in the sun
and how fortunate to have a brief run.
Categories:
oafish, allusion,
Form: Sonnet
---------------------------------------------
Three sisters - two as lovely as the dawn,
the third, a travesty of face and form
and we - a trio of fine gentlemen,
(to all but former flames, who'd disagree!)
Like Musketeers, we fellows made a set -
one for us all and all of us for one!
So too, these ladies, we learned with dismay,
which left us with no choice but to draw lots...
Good manners and good breeding tantamount,
we chose three cards and tossed them in a hat -
two Queens and one that we had scratched to white
(which would, of course, prescribe the oafish girl)
At times, one is the cart... at times the ox
This night, a beast of burden I became
The first man pulled a heart, the next, a spade
but last to choose - alas! I drew a blank!
---------------------------------------------
Categories:
oafish, friendship, games, humorous, men,
Form: Blank verse
How pity! How tingly! How niggling to hear!
Ah! Some lousy bee has bitten you!
That delicate muscle of your upper-arm,
While on your house’s roof, leaving clothes to dry!
Have you rubbed over with knife and thrown the stinger out?
Have you applied an onion over or still not!
Oh! How ugly, how atrocious the bee bad,
Must in shame deplore, on her dirty deed!
How oafish she, how shameless she,
Hurt an elegant lady! Bit her flowery skin!
Does it still swell, does it still burn?
Oh no! Let me do not know it; for it will raise my missing you more!
Just take care of, like I myself would:
Rubbing, kissing and cuddling—close!
Categories:
oafish, grief, love, missing,
Form: Free verse
Dreams dieing distantly
Long lingering light
Falling further faraway
Fabricated fouled fight
Traces teasing telling
Selfish senseless sores
Open oafish obedience
Crackling coastal core
Sacrificial senses stating
An awkward abandonment
Naked notions needing
Sweet succulent selfless scents
Aromas airing anonymously
Teaching to tell the tale
Dislocated dreams deadening
Fictionalizing failure; a final farewell
© Stacy Lynn Stiles
Categories:
oafish, hope, introspection, life,
Form: Alliteration
At the steering wheel,
I am inanely awed
by how my car greedily gulps down
into its hood that interminable stretch
of gray highway snaking out as a huge,
obsidian conveyor belt
from the edge of the earth
where the rim of the opalescent sky
at daybreak
begins.
In the same oafish wonder,
I see the pavement itself rush in
and zoom in an ashen blur
under the wan headlights,
only to be belched out as smoky smithereens
filling up the rearview mirror,
disappearing into the oblivion
of speed and distance
far, far
behind.
Categories:
oafish, happiness, imagination, introspection, life,
Form: Free verse