Lost - But Found! comical poem number 664 by Angela Lansbury

 Yesterday we had a big loss

I'm trying to be pleased, not cross

I often find it seems the same

When something's lost, I get the blame

I keep hoping it's simply hid

I keep rewinding what we did

Check photos, phone shops, don't lose heart

Replay the day right from the start

We seemed to spend lots of money

In a delightful art-craft shop

Choose for me, next our small  honey

Then we both knew we had to stop

First buy - watercolour pencils

Then paper, a thick drawing pad

Then a putty rubber, eraser

The total sum was looking bad

We chose one thing, watching money

Just one thing more, it grew to four

One last thing, do me a favour

Small putty rubber, (eraser)

Four times seven is twenty eight

The assistant is working hard

Spending money's bad, yet great

Thank goodness we've a credit card

Do you want a bag? We disagree

My mistake, I thought it was free

Our friends have left, we must hurry

Where had they gone? Minor worry.

***

We'd checked the room of our hotel

Checked out. Trip over,  All seemed well.

One day later, unpacked at home

Our precious purchases? They've gone!

We both serched near, we both searched far

Not in my bag, suitcase, nor car

Not on my desk, under my chair

Hall, corridor, looked everywhere

I searched the web, hoped for a sale

Replace? Keep searching! Wrote email

Recorded message, use our web

Click send,  Type here, again it said!

For hours and hours I felt bereft

I wondered where it could be left

Left in the toilet I suspect

Our friend down south, she might collect

***

Next day, at last, thank God it's found!

His study floor it's run aground.

Lay hidden under something else.

What lesson for you? And myself?

Save yourselves from getting fraught

By recalling what you've been taught

Check which of you has bags, and where

Check table, under bed and chair

Stick address labels labels on each gift

Note where it is, each time you lift.

When you unpack, have a gifts place!

You'll save yourself a three-day chase

Nobody need apologise

Learn from mistakes, let's all be wise

Keep order, Calm down. Look around

Forget trouble. What's lost was found!

-ends-

Please share links to your favourite poems from this blog.

Also check books by Angela Lansbury poet on Amazon.co.uk  and Lulu.com

If you meet me and have one of my books with you I can sign it and write a rhyming couplet using your name, or the name of the person for whom you bought the book as a gift. 

Review from purchaser

I giggled a lot reading your book. 

Amparo, Harrovian Toastmasters International Speakers' Club, London.

Lost comic poem 487 by Angela Lansbury

 Where did I lose the thing I've lost?

I hope I'll find it - fingers crossed

Perhaps the object's in its place

And I'm the one confused and lost.

-ends-

Please share links to your favourite poems.

Description	Français : Fête de la musique 2019 à Genève. Objets trouvés : un petit chien en peluche « doudou », une pince à cheveux, posé sur un distributeur à sachets pour crottes de chiens « Caninette ».
Date	23 June 2019, 15:13:09
Source	Own work
Author	MHM55

Stories Of Successful Lost And Found. Comic poem 444 by Angela Lansbury. Plus footnote of analysis and on how to write comic poems

The World

I should avoid reading bad news

But, as usual I bad choose

Must know if important changes

Will alter what I need to do

The headline has the worst unfurled

The web God, Microsoft, is down

One glitch affects the whole wide world

Even stops planes, you can't leave town 

Working From Home

Cocooned at home I'm running late

I've overslept, feel out of joint

Here I create my own sad fate

Can't find my missing Powerpoint

The Problem

It's amazing how our gadgets

Save work, and keep our minds alive

Without hard drives, no Powerpoint

No speech records. I can't survive!

The First Search

We chucked out clutter, searched the floor

Checked in the car, and on the ground

Yesterday we lost many things

A clear-out means many are found

I found a lost computer bag

I scanned corners inside each box

We searched shy, long hidden boxes

Not deterred by those which were locked

We've turned out old carrier bags

Called anxiously, 'Have you found it?'

We gave up. Rested. 'Please don't nag'

'Plough on. Papers could surround it

Move the books, notebooks, and papers

Throw all your useless things away

My desktop's clear, no more vapours

Desks needs tidying anyway

Ah Ha - Process of Elimination

If it's not here, then it's elsewhere

Our family visit - must be there

I text at midnight, forced to wait

Like them, sleep calm, not in a state

I sent a message on What's up

The family didn't read it

I called again, it's at their house

They looked quickly - and found it

Solutions

'It wasn't left on the table'

'So, tell me where,' 'Can you guess where?

It was right there, where you left it

But black's hidden on a black chair'

Conclusion

The world's sure to solve its problems

If today dumb me has solved mine

I've plans to number each cable.

I'm confident, in charge, feel fine.

The sky is still in the blue sky

The ground is still on the firm ground

The loss is he past, was yesterday

Because today the lost is found.

I can't blame kings, the big, wide world

Each country's humans, just like me

I've found my important had drive

But I've just lost my cup of tea.

Blue Denby cups. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

-ends-

A blog is a blog, a web log. It requires writing something new every day. New ideas. New facts. New events.

How To Find New Ideas

Looking in my emails, which come from a drinks business, or a shoe shop or other retailer, I see it's easy to promote something new of the 365 items they have in stock, with seasonal sales. 

But what about a poetry blog? How do I find something new to write about every morning? 

Facebook wants me to keep posting. Why? So their advertisements have some editorial matter to hang onto. to interleave with the advertising, to keep the readers coming back. So Facebook encourages me to post by asking a simple questions, 'what's on your mind today'. 

Today I turned on the blogger. The comic poetry blog was waiting, What was on my mind? 

My lost hard drive. So I wrote a poem about loss. Lost and found. 

Abstract Or Personal

To make it less abstract, more informational, new, I told a personal story. That makes it original.

Optimism

I like to end on a happy note. So I ended on a happy note.

Surprise

Then I added in this footnote, that to be comical, you can end with a surprise. How do you create surprise? At a Toastmasters course on humour I learned, either one sad story followed by a happy one, or one happy story followed by a sad or bad one, or to mislead further, two or more or one kind, then reverse in the last verse. A one line joke has one sentence, ending with a surprise.

Analysis of Joke Construction

 A simple joke has two serious or happy statements, followed by one which is nonsense, or ridiculous. Or bad but so bad that it's clearly made up or worst case scenario. 

Comic Poems Construction

In comic poems it is the same format, with added rhymes. Then, check ideally the same number of syllables. If it's conversational, or constructed, a rhythm of alternating strong and weak beats. English conversation is often iambic, eg I am - or trochee, stamping on the first beat going. Morning. Welcome. 

Sub-Headings For Sorting Editorial

Today, I added a verse which seemed out of place. To help myself to sort out the structure, I went back and added sub-headings. 

Sub-Headings To Help Readers

You usually do this in prose, to help the reader follow the logic. Visually, you also break up the the on the page to look more simple, less daunting, smaller chunks, less time needed to concentrate on each section.

Sub-headings create opportunities to take a break, if interrupted. By your own thoughts, or somebody outside, or a doorbell.

Sub headings make it easier to find your way back after an interruption.  

Sub-Headings As An Innovation

Maybe I have started a new system.  It's new for my own poetry. It might be new and a help for everybody else's. 

The illustration shows one blue Denby cup hiding a smaller blue cup. (A bit like the warning signpost, one train can hide another.)

Please save and share links to your favourite amusing, light-hearted poems and useful posts.

Successfully Over-Packing And Unpacking A Suitcase comic poem 232 by Angela Lansbury

Suitcase and key ring. Photo by Angela Lansbury.

Were you better at this than me?

Yes, years ago I had no clue

Now I've packing PhD

I pack all socks inside the shoes

 

A suitcase like a bedroom drawer

Take out one item, then you find

It shuts the way it did before

Swimsuit or night dress left behind?

No, everything is in its place

I'm short of space so I confess

Just one thing more, I weigh my case

I wear a third reversible dress

For our return I have a list

What might be lost? Now I can see

An image, to fret about what's missed

Only one shoe. one sock, dear me

I find lost shoes under the bed

Under pillows a nightdress

A picture in my phone and head

Will haunt long flights, nightmare distress

A kind air hostess took my jacket

Wrapped round duty free gifts I'd bought

Because I had no room to pack it

Have I learned all the things I taught?

Yes, I count bags at every stage

Arrive with bags, caps, coats in threes!

But one thing makes the others rage

Because I've lost the suitcase keys!

-ends-

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The Lost and Broken Umbrella Comic Poem 122 by Angela Lansbury

 Red, bent umbrella. Photo by Angela Lansbury. Copyright.

I've lost my broken umbrella

I'm sure you are wondering why

I have lost my broken umbrella

I put it down wet, left it up to dry

Did I leave it in the restaurant?

Or leave it on the train?

The trouble with lost umbrellas is

You never find them again

I admit it was twisted and broken

I admit, like me, it was old and bent

I admit it didn't add to my status

But I still wonder where it went

But today I found an umbrella

Broken and stained and stuck

It was half on the grass, under a bush

Covered in leaves and muck

I can see why the owner left it

It's a nuisance to wash, as you see

Nobody would ever want it

Nobody else but me

Lost and broken umbrellas

Are everywhere on the ground

I lost one and I found one

Broken umbrellas, not round, but go round. 

-ends-

My Funny Family (version 7) poem by Angela Lansbury

My Funny Family
by Angela Lansbury

My family is very strange
But they are extremely funny
Some of them are obscenely rich
Won't help us who beg for money

My mother talked for twenty years
But never stopped to pause for breath
Father always smiled and nodded
Nobody noticed he was deaf

Dear Mum didn't think it mattered
After we lost my mother, dear
I asked my widowed Dad, 'Tea? Tea?"
And realised he could not hear.

My uncle played the violin
Better than all, than me or you
Won scholarships, played on cruise ships
A fine player, but stone deaf, too!

Played for radio, BBC
A fine player, not one wrong note
He left me books on lip-reading
He'd been deaf as an old, dead goat.

Poor Uncle's toilet filled with weed
He had no cash for a plumber
Instead he taught one the trumpet
Yet the toilets stank all summer

My son says, "You're the weirdest one
'Cos you write comic poetry!"
I can't see why he thinks I'm odd
My family's more strange than me.

-ends.

 Copyright Angela Lansbury, May 12 2017.

Grammatically it should end more strange than I am but me rhymes. Poet's license.