Birthdays
Too many candles on my cake
And it seems like everyone mumbles.
I’ve given up coffee and butter and steak,
Ice cream and rhubarb crumbles.
I could recite a litany
Of grievances, there’s no doubt,
But the one that’s really bugging me
Is my birthday suit’s stretched out.
Going Out with the Girls
An old lady who never was married
Declared how she wished to be buried:
“To Heaven or Hades, give me pall-bearing ladies.
I’m particular how I am carried.
In my lifetime,” she said with a pout,
“There was no man who worried about
How much I was pining for wining and dining—
It’s too late to be taking me out.”
Pat D’Amico is a former elementary school teacher who has always enjoyed packaging life’s ironies in rhyme. She was a regular contributor to The Wall Street Journal‘s Pepper and Salt from 1986 to 2000. Her verses have appeared in The Saturday Evening Post, Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Light Quarterly, Lighten Up ( book two), Lighten Up Online, Northwest Prime Time, and The Seattle Times. She has three booklets in print: Doggerellies, Grandmarellies, and Thwarting Father Time.