Off Color Poems

Yearn

in faces lined like glaciers
sometimes there's loneliness 
that cuts a tow line to safety
air of flux and hostility
over dazed eyes
turbulent modernity

sometimes we yearn for elegance
like a warm shoulder
its edge of acceptance
fitted with precision 

yearn to heal a heart in straight jacket pain
to know motivation that punches above the weight
                                            of a fragile frame
to relish the faith of a welcoming hand
to find a community 
that bends the bar of one's cage into bracelets

shuffled like a deck of cards
lives seldom remain still
yearning to break an existence slurred by off color jokes
reaching for an unseeable light
a homeward wish 
smothering woe

Out On a Limb

Ok I am going to trot this one out once again
not knowing if it will be better received than
When it flopped in Peoria.

I love to hear people laugh.I love to have a part in making people laugh.Sometimes I get carried
away in that pursuit.

Once while talking on the phone to my oldest sister
and hearing her little giggle I retold a joke
my brother the crass master had told.

Granted it was borderline yet bizarre enough
that it would not offend I believed

You be the judge......Hey Deloris I said did you hear about that guy that died while eating fresh mountain oysters?No,in a voice of concern she said. Yeah,seems the hog drug him through a barbed wire fence............silence.......more silence
Yet still more s....... well you get the picture.

I don't consider myself to be a heathen but then this stuff happens.

Don't know exactly what she found off color about it.Feel free to clue me in.I never asked her about it
as her infinite silence was all the chastising I can handle in that regard.So shoot me a line kids,Set me straight. Should I cull this one for good?

Off-Color Etymology

A word that surely had to go
       Folks pronounced it 'Knee-grow'

     Just as with 'shi-tte'
       ~ It took a big hitt-e



_________________________________
Note: 'sbitte' is Chaucerian-era Middle
English, pronounced 'shi-teh' and mean-
ing 'brown.' Today, we impatient moderns 
spell it with only four letters.

Special Day To View

The sun shined through the window
An unexpected gift today
Coming through overcast skies
Light shining, as it wants to play

Casting dancing shadows in the breeze
Warming the cool morning air
We sit on the edge of autumn
With a beautiful day so fair

Mountains are ready to show off color
With trees covering their side
Observers wait to see the foliage
Where the scenery here never hides

Gratitude rises along with the sun
It’s another special day to view
Warming a soul in a special place
Seeing rivers, lakes and rocks too

Heidi Sands

9/18/20

Who Is the Ugliest At the Ugly Bug Ball

Who is the ugliest at the ugly bug ball?
Is it the hideous gnat or giraffe so tall?
Could it be that spitting camel with the ugly hump?
Or the orangutan with the butt that makes us jump?

Mayhaps it is the blue-footed boobie, a weird looking fellow
Or that weird looking duckling whose suit is off-color yellow.
Bloody turkey buzzard with mouth full of gore just came in.
He is not only ugly, but his carnivorous ways are an evil twin.

Octopus, penguin, goat, quail, each with an oddity.
Scorpion, wasp, rattlesnake with pattern of a vee….
Who is the ugliest at the ugly bug ball?
Starfish and squirrel get to pick but they went to the mall.

Could it be the mongoose, the peahen or yak?
Let’s choose the winner before they get back.
Sturgeon has a suggestion. It sounds like a wow.
Let’s call it a tie, and give them all a big whack.

Sometimes I Blunder

Throughout our lives we sometimes blunder
We assume our writings are received with humor
A failure to understand
The reaction is unplanned
The recipient recoils at the humor off-color

Humor

Humor makes everything seem sunny
Though some things can leave our eyes runny
Gonna lighten things up
Tell some off-color smut
Sure gets one's attention especially if smutty

Just Another Day

~

I gaze at the sunrise,
it’s apricot view
While spending my morning
just thinking of you

It’s glow on the heavens
a magical scene
Of lemonade wishes
and cantaloupe sheen

Though still it is muted
an off color shade
As something is missing
this dawn now displayed

For until your beautiful
smile comes my way
This morn will be merely
just another day

~

Never Too Old

Never too old to have some fun
Peddling slowly with shaded eyes 
Dressed to be fit in off-color Levi's 
A noon-time bicycle ride out in the sun  
Loving each other, loving life 
So long they've lived; husband & wife 
Never too old to have some fun 



(photo 1.)

Make It Seven Poetry Contest 
Sponsor: Joseph May 
10-14-2019

Dirty Honey

Lost and hungry, the sign said " fresh fruit and honey",
to buy a jar out of charity and test the fates
country stores never throw anything away-

I picked up a dusty jar and held it to the light
to see if anything was on the rot or even alive
it was off color, so I bought a soda and a some socks 
I put the dirty honey back on the ancient shelf
and bid farewell to mom and pop-

When Summers Were Fun

Remember when summers were fun?
   When the days were long and you were gone
      From just after dawn 'till the setting sun

Remember when summers were fun
   When you didn't go to work or to school
      When you hung out with your buddies at the local pool

Remember when summers were fun
   When you played baseball for hours and hours on end
      When Mom couldn't track you, couldn't text messages send

Remember when summers were fun
   When you teased the girls, before you first noticed their curves
      When you played daredevil on your bike, stunts of steel nerves 

Remember when summers were fun
   When in one giant gulp you downed an ice-cold coke
      When no one was offended by an off-color joke

Remember when summers were fun
   Well, if you do, you may be the only one
      Because those kind of summers are finished and done

Can'T Make Me Stop

Can't make me love you less than vapor’s cloud spins pillowed nest,
Or star condemns implosion that brings elements to life!
Should your love find a treasured home in someone else's chest,
Will nature shrug off color if, at last, you're not my wife?

A rainbow’s curving beauty signals flooding won’t return,
And how much more do seasons offer hope that comes in Spring,
All blossoming in seed’s rebirth! It’s wrong that lovers yearn
For seasons change? Though flowers fade, may vines yet find a string.

My poem’s not a fragile path or breadcrumbs on the ground,
That worms devour or leaves obscure, its music’s waves move air
That carries birdsong, rhyme as well. I pray its Truth’s not drowned!
Oh, let all magic conjured up, serve faith, that none forswear!

Though boundaries restrain us all, let metered verse contest
The limits poets buy into, imaginations soar
Through dark fields, photons race to plumb! Let no muse be depressed
By wagging tongue or sullied rhyme, man’s future’s just one door!


Brian Johnston
25th of April in 2019

I'Ve Got Snelly On My Shoe

My muse today sends me to
         a curious debate
Who decided naughty words
         were naughty, who’s dictate?

Why only four letter words
        And why not five or more
It would still be cursing
        With a longer word, for sure 

Wouldn’t the off color word
     (It rhymes with sit), it’s smelly
Be just as effective, saying
     I don’t give a snelly!

Why can’t snelly be the word?
     Would that not work for you?
And why are bad words, bad at all,
     I’ve got snelly on my shoe!!

Fertile

Found out I was colorblind, it came right out of the purple
Maybe a bit off color, that's a color of a different turtle
How weird is this cat
Something's got detached
In the dictionary the definition of me says fertile!

Misshapen Thoughts

Misshapen thoughts  

Held beyond oblivion,
shackles cut the flow,
chains of corroded memories
wrapped tightly 
around my windmill brain
Squeezing life, in or out,
pooling on a jagged earth
Grimacing contorted gestures
and pointed fingers heckle
as I am dragged through the streets
of my misshapen thoughts
Over cobblestone alleys,
dark lonely walls splattered in
pig blood graffiti
spelling my name wrong
Dripping slowly, staining brick
and off color facades
changing by the day,
exposing expressions
of those shunned 
in the face of popularity

• Short Off Color Poems
• Famous Off Color Poems
• Best Off Color Poems
• Read Off Color Poems
• Long Off Color Poems
• Off Color Quotes