Written: December 07, 2025, for contest sponsored by Benjamin Bartley
**************
One day, the wiggle-wobble wobbliness begins to shake.
They writhed and jiggled in a truly amusing wake!
They dashed across tunnels and bounced on a breeze.
Tickled the blossoms, and sniffed the trees.
They gulped laughs, they sipped up the sun,
They hiccupped together—oh, what fun!
They painted the sky with a bubblegum tone.
And carve the skies with one or two stones.
Wizzle, a Woozle, exhibited socks on his head.
One other donned pancakes in place of his bread.
They drummed on their drums and shook their rattles.
With twiddly thumbs, they sang "Zibble-Zabble!"
Both the adults and the children laughed.
Wherever Woozles woo, they convey a raft
They educate us that stupidity is vibrant and bright.
That absurdity twinkles and tickles the night.
Thus, if you feel blue, grumpy, or gloomy,
Simply summon a Woozle; they will dance and draw me.
They will chuckle and wobble, rhyme and rattle;
And allow every moment to prattle.
These weak attempts at verse could not be droller.
Your stuff is less inviting than ebola
(but not as catchy). Wordier than Emil Zola,
you haven’t got the steam to be a roller.
I’ve seen more cutting-edge in Pepsi-Cola.
You clearly honed your style in Fuengirola.
About as challenging as last year’s “¡Hola!”
(I’m sure you’re highly thought of in Angola.)
But that aside, I need a favour, mate.
The flood of would-be Shakespeares is in spate.
I’d like you to review – that is, donate
your time and talent (at the going-rate,
which happens to be zero.) Desecrate
the pricks who prattle, and the prigs who prate.
Denounce, detract. Indulge that gelding hate
that wells in all of us. The cut-off date
is looming, so get hacking. Don’t be late!
For: OXYMORON Poetry Contest * Sponsor: Nette Onclaud * August 31, 2025
Silent scream of dreams escaping
into reality becomes
meaningless sound of words as if
my ears are muffled by prattle
of life never moving into
the bold technicolor passion
that poets have defined as love
and promised to me forever.
Eke out, O my living?
On what grounds do ye speak?
Based on our thanksgiving?
O turkey, through creek creak!
Wind atop the atoll low?
Steady, then first blow.
Ogre, ochre. Fast or slow?
Gold, give off thy glow...
Tyrant of the ocean deep;
Through dark chasm leap?
Horror, do ye find life cheap?
Challengers to creep...
Thought-light, gloss over the spark?
Fire, light up the dark?
Covenant? Communion, ark?
Hone, upon the bark...
Fill in, O ravine? Unseen.
Trail lead through the green.
Emptiness, fill each machine?
Will it work, I deen...?
Dismay, spring from dynamite?
Nuclear, gone white?
Pinholes, curtains, nine knives, night!
Rampage on the right!
Queen of civilized world, wait?
Hie across the strait!
O for those who prattle, prate!
Rage at higher rate!
Barbarians, gather?
Oppose such as this?
Well, we wouldn't rather.
Sail on, black abyss...
My mind is tribal, I hunt in the mud and slurry,
I track the stars in a wooden chariot
made from the ribs of a blood-clan crib.
My thoughts are armored, yet as articulated
as any youthful flesh, they cannot be washed,
or manipulated, I have an ax for every hand
against them, a caress for those
who choose to fight on the battlefield
of inspiring ideas,
a painted arrow and shield to defend
the commandments of ever-mutating gods.
A green tree within a high mountain
is my mind, a solar flare of endless creation
are my barbaric prayers,
the same orisons that now civilize the corrupt
and morally spent.
I am the heart of existence, my tribal markings
cannot be scrubbed away, by smooth-skulled
manikins or the slick prattle
of any grandiose legion.
Lots of mindless prattle and giggles from Cindy’s room
She was sweet-talking our next-door-neighbor Biff on Zoom
Some future Saturday they may become bride and groom
At ten, they are happy to laugh about silly things on Zoom
Oh mighty dingo I see you still crawl.
Long ago broken hearted and yet you still bawl.
Tears down both cheeks, is it your poor little peetie?
My heart aches for you, my dear little sweetie.
Still gritting your teeth while stuck in a clinch.
If your throne’s getting cold, then you might as well pinch.
You slither around with you childish boring prattle.
You’re still stuck in our creek, without either paddle.
Fed up with his constant prattle
I got into a verbal battle
The harshest of words were spoken
But in the end his will was broken
My voice was clear and strong of lung
I was sharp of wit and deft of tongue
His face grew pale and ashen gray
Then he finally just walked away
.
'twixt the
Spruce's sluggish
draped 'bout hern
already clothed
she squats
to engage the
living
'neath next
it's girth
i headed unto mine
and her's
headed for
spirited
poetic prattle
'bout she and
the nymph's
pima's soft
caressing
her's
Chet wore his plaid pants up to his pencil protector
People ran from the cafeteria when they saw him
He was an incessant talker
Never let anyone else speak
We have all been cornered by him
His prattle is boring; scientific crap
Stuff none of us care about
Quantum physics, montum shizzicks,
We don’t even believe in whatever it is
We are from the Midwest
in a town of two thousand
He may be my cousin, but I am the first to say
Clear out of the way, I have to get out of here
He is an educated idiot
Spewing facts right and left
Over our heads they go, bouncing round the walls
flicking into the furniture like bullets
No one is interested!
We back up as he edges into our personal space
He has no boundaries,
it is all about him
and it is annoying
to those of us who
have a life.
Poor Little Boy Lost plays a game of peekaboo
Pretending everything in his world is well
Spoiled was his plan for organizing a coup
and now he hopes none of his friends can tell
that he's been evicted as some had predicted
Biding his time, twiddling his thumbs in a cell
The entry door is locked. It's safe and secure
He's a cast away... on the outside, looking in
How much longer can he possibly endure
Is Little Boy Lost maybe missing kith and kin?
No one is listening to his babble and prattle
He wears the sorrowful look of sad chagrin
There was another sighting, just yesterday
when again he knocked on the playroom door
Not being allowed entry is the price to pay
for returning seeking praise with another encore
Bitterness smolders inside the blighted apple
where the wiggling worm is rotting the core
He was dragged off stage by the dreaded hook
No longer can he read his script in the limelight
because of the low road and wrong turns he took
A playground should not be a place meant to fight
Kiddies there have been getting along very well
Apologies, Little Boy Lost should be made to write
I pick up their idle chatter five days of the week.
Conversation with other passengers, I never seek
to learn of a secret one of them might privately leak.
But try as I might, I cannot help but overhear
a new recipe she tried, or the reason for his fear.
Sometimes, I wish I was deaf, at least in one ear!
I try reading my newspaper and ignore the prattle,
but often it's louder than the train car's rattle.
I'm not interested in the gossip of their tittle tattle.
At least the man with the cigar, smokes it outside,
or I'd take another tram. Cigar stench I can't abide.
I live in the burbs, so it's a long way home I ride.
Today, there's a young lady who wouldn't take a seat.
She looks worried, or at least somewhat browbeat,
like the people I work with down at Dun & Bradstreet.
I often wonder what's on the young conductor's mind.
Does he despise his job because he feels confined?
I'm off at the next stop, where I leave them all behind.
We may wonder if the painter sensed
that perfect revealing, that apogee,
and how it was understood
that all else,
anything now added,
would be a superfluous footnote.
When that exactness,
that 'just rightness'
arrives out of nowhere,
then
description and explanation
must stand just as needless prattle.
When the ineffable happens
it is time
to throw the brush away.
Poor Claire with arthritis she’d battle,
Her bones would shake like a rattle,
She was always tight-lipped,
But her dress she finally zipped,
Relieved she would go on and prattle.
To Ireland, Claire went on a hop
And promptly was caught by a cop
Her face was so red
For in drink she was bred
Till they fed her with milk and a sop.
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