A Working Woman in Points South

I wrote a lot of Working Woman poems in my Working Woman days in Points South, most of them at work. Or in the car on the way to. Don't ask. Looking back on them now, they seem funnier than I thought at the time. Unfortunately, most of them are more awful than I thought at the time, too. These are a couple I still like.

Out in the Noonday Sun

Or,

I Don't Do Company Picnics

Once a June has finished busting,
Further summer's so disgusting,
How can you volunteer
To hold an outing and have a seat
Outdoors in the worst of summer's heat,
And what am I doing here?

Cooking where it's bright and torrid,
Eating out of doors is horrid
Deep in the tropic zone.
You cavort and have your fling
If prickly heat's your favorite thing,
It isn't among my own.

Here I stand all damp and drippy
While you fools are yelling yippee
Out in the noonday sun.
I'm no hail fellow, I'm no good sport,
I don't play ball and I don't cavort.
Sweating is not good fun.

In a fog all hot and hazy,
Let me just be limp and lazy
Here in the burning yard,
Otherwise you'll only see me
Like a weiner, sizzled, steamy,
Roasted, grilled and charred.

See me faint, all weak and wilted,
Like a lover, lorn and jilted,
Losing a lot of salt,
Like a record warped and wavy,
Like the floating grease in gravy,
Pliable to a fault.

Like the sweet and sticky honey
On the butter, warm and runny,
Melting into the bun,
Holy cow and Ave Maria,
What an assinine idea,
Out in the noonday sun.

Was it Kipling or was it Twain
Who gave the world that great refrain,
"Mad dogs and Englishmun"?
He must have known and gave it mouth,
Of company picnics in the South
Out in the noonday sun.

Jocularity

When you missed by just an inch today
An accident vehicular,
And all you'd like to do is be
Supine, not perpendicular,
And reaching home, your cat was in
No mood to be adorable -
You just forgot to feed her too,
A lapse she found deplorable,
The ants were marching in your sink,
The mail was late as usual,
You missed your lunch, and back at work
You're late and unexcusual,
Your hair is frizzed, your lips are chapped,
Your clothes are nonexpandable -
If this was you, then might you think
My mood was understandable?

The office staff, if privy to
My problems, think them trivial,
And adding to the injury,
Expect of me convivial
Behavior, when I'm small as in
The end of a binocular,
That's when the office repartee
Is turning to the jocular.
My need is great for sympathy,
My troubles are spectacular,
And all you have to offer me
Is jovial vernacular.

I'm sorry I'm unjocular,
Unjovial, unhumorous,
Ill-tempered and demoralized
By laughter of the numerous,
I'm nervous, anti-social, and
Feel wimpy with a W,
And wouldn't think of mentioning
A word, in case I trouble you.
I tried to be responsive but
I can't, in utter clarity,
So when you see me coming, please,
Don't give me jocularity.

---

A last glimpse of Points South

Pity, Oh Pity the Yellow Rose

She trod and trod to tell it true
And swallow all her prod,
For rot from wrong she surely knew,
But still she lah'd and lah'd.

And when the truth had come to lot
And, her excuses spoled,
The sod she took was not the rot,
And thus in Hail she broled.

But penitence on Judgement Day
She crah'd unto her God,
Who said, "What did the woman say?"
And still in Hail she frah'd.