Holesome Dough (A Song by the Pharaoh’s Maestro, D’oh-Raymese) and Other Poems

By Ken Gosse

Holesome Dough (A Song by the Pharaoh’s Maestro, D’oh-Raymese)

Doughnuts are our favorite bread,
rainy days or in sunshine.
Meaningfully, each kid pled,
“Father, tell him this one’s mine!”
Soulful eyes are watching you;
lots of begging while they chew;
teasing you to give them two,
’cause they can’t live without dough, dough, dough,
“D’oh, Nuts!”

Flu Shy, Don’t Bother Me (Fevered Thoughts)

I think it’s the phlough—
that’s flu as in “through,”
not flow as in “dough”
or floff as is “trough”
or flower like “plougher”
or fluff …
but enough!

It rattles and addles my brain
and lowers my boggling point so,
that I ask, “So I am?”
Perhaps not, thank you Ma’am.
At the moment,
I really don’t know.

Ants in his Pants

There once was a dark, stormy knight,
who stepped on an anthill at night.
With ants in his pants
they could all hear his rants,
but too late!
He was gone—
every bite.

Swing Slow, Old Chariot

The man on the flying trapeze,
once senescent, flew with unease.
His bones and his jointments
were silenced by ointments
but girls he might please heard him wheeze.

Collision Course (A Twitrick in 140 Characters)

The Very Large Hadron Collider
has billions of pieces inside ’er.
Created by man,
more complex than a can
but quite simple compared to a spider.

Twice for Good Measure

Measure twice. Cut once.
Repeat as necessary
till you’re out of wood.

Ken Gosse usually writes short, rhymed verse using whimsy and humor in traditional meters. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, since then in The Offbeat, Pure Slush, Parody, Home Planet News Online, Sparks of Calliope and others. Raised in the Chicago, Illinois, suburbs, now retired, he and his wife have lived in Mesa, AZ, over twenty years.