Celebrating Life Over 50 in the Puget Sound Region and Beyond

With Apologies to Edgar Allen Poe, Dr. Seuss and Mother Goose

September 23, 2023 at 7:09 a.m.

...by Pat D'Amico

I have always loved poetry. It’s amazing the way that words can touch the heart and paint powerful pictures that convey love, beauty, joy, sorrow, fear, loss, irony or mirth. I’m especially drawn to rhyming poetry with cadence added into the mix. Light verse is my absolute favorite because it’s just pure fun and it keeps my old brain cooking. It stands to reason that I would play around a little with parody:

SQUAWKING
Once upon a morning dreary,
I awakened bleak and bleary
Pondering a visage that was strutting to and fro--.
Stealing berries from my garden,
Not so much as beg your pardon,
Causing gentle hearts to harden--
How I hate that crow!
The droppings have been unrelenting.
My car is splattered and fermenting.
I feel better after venting.
Sorry, Mr. Poe.

SPAM
I do not like my eggs with Spam.
Who knows what they have tried to cram
Into that old familiar can
That’s recognized by every man
Whose mother shopped with ration books
And all the military cooks
Who never solved the mystery
Of what that hunk of gunk could be.
I do not like my eggs with Spam.
I like ham, that’s how I am.

A GYM DANDY IDEA
Little Miss Muffet got off her tuffet
And hopped on an exercise bike.
Along came a rider who worked out beside her,
Causing his brain cells to spike:
“I propose,” said he (a grad of MIT
And a certified innovator)
“That we use all this vim and connect every gym
To some kind of a generator.
The surplus of power produced by the hour
Would crank of a lot. Of juice
And the trimming of thighs would light the night skies,
So help me, Mother Goose.”

This photo of Pat D’Amico, longtime contributor to Northwest Prime Time, was taken the day of her 70^th high school reunion. “I kept my mom’s house in Bellingham and the renters are wonderful. My daughter snapped the picture while I was looking around with great pleasure,” says Pat.