Tag Archives: humour

Ann Arbor Business Trip

humour, Life, poem, Poetry, , , , , ,

So we came off the plane
and they met us with a car
took us hungry and tired
to a huge Sushi bar

Two girls they thought us
tried to phase us with raw fish
but we were Londoners
we could devour any dish

Next night they tried Rogan Josh
after a long day of negotiation
Grinning, we upped the chilli
scoffed it down without hesitation

Then there was the brewery where
they planned to drink us under the table
but we were women of the world
always ready and able

To match them beer for beer
and whiskey for whiskey
and then when they were plastered
one of the idiots tried to get frisky

We threw them out the door
turned up in the office next morning
clinched the deal at cost price
while they were hungover and yawning

Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond

My Marketing Manager & I went to Ann Arbor in the late 1990s to secure a software deal for a coalition of the worlds airlines. The American negotiators tried all sort of tricks to put us “girls” (as they kept calling us) on the back foot. But expecting to out curry or out drink Londoners is simply naive. :)

This poem is a true story — although I’ve missed out the Mexican Chilli house and the Greek restaurant. Did they really think Greek was strange foreign food to a Londoner????? We led the dancing and plate throwing that night!

I was inspired by an excellent poem over at Jims blog: High Plains Sushi

My little dinosaurs

Chickens, humour, poem, Poetry, , ,

They crane, rotate, jerk
goof their necks around
taking a series of snapshots
looking for the main chance

make significant snap judgments about the speed and distance of a target
insect, mouse, frog, slug
or the neighbours cat

Do not question their motives
lest they destroy you.

Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond

Old

humour, Life, poem, Poetry, , , , ,

When you are old you
don’t understand
the plot of any Avengers film
but do understand
personal comfort is important
hence the clothes you are wearing

Gladly point out that nobody
really knows what a blockchain is
start to ask things like
“Who needs that many tattoos?”
find you are saving everything
and wasting nothing
particularly stale leftovers
expect to have at least one ache or pain at all times.

Being old is a state of mind
when you are old
you don’t have to pretend anymore.

Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond

Friday Poem: Mr Nobody

Friday Poem, humour, Life, poem, Poetry, , , , ,

I know a funny little man,
As quiet as a mouse,
Who does the mischief that is done
In everybody’s house.
There’s no one ever sees his face,
And yet we all agree
That every plate we break was cracked
By Mr., Nobody

‘Tis he who always tears our books,
who leaves our doors ajar;
he pulls the buttons from our shirts,
and scatters pins afar,
that squeaking door will always squeak,
because of this you see:
we leave the oiling to be done
by Mr Nobody.

He puts damp wood upon the fire,
So kettles cannot boil;
His are the feet that bring in mud
And all the carpets soil.
The papers always are mislaid,
Who had them last but he?
There’s no one tosses them about
But Mr. Nobody

by Walter de la Mare

The Rescue Chicken

Chickens, humour, poem, Poetry, , , , ,

She’s a rescue chicken
no rest for her
half her feathers missing
she’s one tough bird

Small, brown, determined
she plans to sneak back in
wirecutters in beak
to cut free the other chickens

Who says a rescue chicken
needs tender care?
This one’s for the liberation
of battery hens everywhere

Copyright © 2021 Kim Whysall-Hammond

This poem sprung into my head upon reading Jim Feeneys wonderful poem Oprah Among the Chickens, where he asks:

Is a rescue chicken
a chicken that has been rescued by people
or is it a chicken that rescues people?

Well, I had a different idea………

The photo comes from the excellent British Hens Welfare Trust.

Beak Trimming – Mutilation or a Necessity?

The Teenage Years

children, humour, poem, Poetry, , , ,

All bets are off in the teenage years
You still share your child’s hopes and fears
But they are a child no more –Can you hear that slammed door?
It’s a bumpy ride–Sometimes Jekyll, sometimes Hyde
You love them to bits, you can’t stand them anymore
And there again is that slamming door
You glimpse a young woman, you glimpse a young man –Try to catch them if you can
Sometimes it seems they’re a toddler again –Needing to share some of the pain
Do you remember when this was you?
Now you know what your parents went through……

Copyright © 2015 Kim Whysall-Hammond

I thought this would resonate with all those living with Teeenagers in Lockdown…..

The Poet’s Circle on Zoom

Guest poem, humour, Poetry, , ,

Another great poem from Jim Feeney at Stopdraggingthepanda. Enjoy!

Stopdraggingthepanda

The Poet’s Circle on Zoom

Way back when, in the time before Covid,
the Poet’s Circle would meet once a month
at The Post-Coital Beetle
for an evening of mixing metaphors.
Last week after much discussion
we had our first session on Zoom
and I don’t mind telling you
it was a white horse of a different kettle
a whole other crap shoot.
There were problems of course,
some of our members
had difficulties with the technology
and that was just the tip of the molehill,
as one of the poets observed
you can lead a leopard to water
but you can’t make him change his tricks;
but when The Academic Poet suggested
that metaphor has no place in modern poetry
that was when the spittle really hit the screen
it all went to hell in a hand basket
and that’s an idiom not a metaphor.
I tried to cool…

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Friday poem: The Book of my Enemy Has Been Remaindered

Friday Poem, humour, poem, Poetry, , , ,

The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am pleased.
In vast quantities it has been remaindered
Like a van-load of counterfeit that has been seized
And sits in piles in a police warehouse,
My enemy’s much-prized effort sits in piles
In the kind of bookshop where remaindering occurs.
Great, square stacks of rejected books and, between them, aisles
One passes down reflecting on life’s vanities,
Pausing to remember all those thoughtful reviews
Lavished to no avail upon one’s enemy’s book –
For behold, here is that book
Among these ranks and banks of duds,
These ponderous and seeminly irreducible cairns
Of complete stiffs.

The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I rejoice.
It has gone with bowed head like a defeated legion
Beneath the yoke.
What avail him now his awards and prizes,
The praise expended upon his meticulous technique,
His individual new voice?
Knocked into the middle of next week
His brainchild now consorts with the bad buys
The sinker, clinkers, dogs and dregs,
The Edsels of the world of moveable type,
The bummers that no amount of hype could shift,
The unbudgeable turkeys.

Yea, his slim volume with its understated wrapper
Bathes in the blare of the brightly jacketed Hitler’s War Machine,
His unmistakably individual new voice
Shares the same scrapyart with a forlorn skyscraper
Of The Kung-Fu Cookbook,
His honesty, proclaimed by himself and believed by others,
His renowned abhorrence of all posturing and pretense,
Is there with Pertwee’s Promenades and Pierrots –
One Hundred Years of Seaside Entertainment,
And (oh, this above all) his sensibility,
His sensibility and its hair-like filaments,
His delicate, quivering sensibility is now as one
With Barbara Windsor’s Book of Boobs,
A volume graced by the descriptive rubric
“My boobs will give everyone hours of fun.”

Soon now a book of mine could be remaindered also,
Though not to the monumental extent
In which the chastisement of remaindering has been meted out
To the book of my enemy,
Since in the case of my own book it will be due
To a miscalculated print run, a marketing error –
Nothing to do with merit.
But just supposing that such an event should hold
Some slight element of sadness, it will be offset
By the memory of this sweet moment.
Chill the champagne and polish the crystal goblets!
The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am glad.

by Clive James