Thanks Joseph.  It won't be saved for posterity but maybe it'll "hang around in the air" for a while!

LOL : )

Actually, I'm looking for a suggestion.  A colloquialism I can use for line 10.
Not really satisfied with: if I hadn’t read ‘im the bans.”

This is hilllllarious, and reminds me of a story, a friend of mine met this guy in a bar (smoke-free, yea!) and he had a job,education, no previous marriages, no psycho ex's, great dresser, straight, polite, not a heavy drinker, not a drug user and she just stared at him (kind of drunkish like) and said, 'oh my god' poked him, looked back up at him and said, 'are you a unicorn?' random? yes please. :) thanks for the reminder, I really do like your poems, they all have this cute playfulness to them, even the serious subject ones have a lightness to them, like your telling your reader not to really take themselves so seriously, its just life after all!

so pleased EB so pleased. thanks!

Of Happiness

The traffic reporter
is hovering
over our local
theme park

Traffic on I20
is jammed from
here to Alabama

Admission is free

And people are
actually
leaving their kids
on the roadside -
the damn expressway

to brave the lanes on foot
in pursuit

I like how the last line circles back into the beginning, it kind of reflects the never ending, tiresome factor of theme parks. Why is admission free? Parents would rather pay than deal with that big of a line...wouldn't they?

OMG - there was such a mess down here in Atlanta today.

A radio station sponsored the promotion. Opens at 6 am free admission until 11 am.  They actually had to close the park at 6;15 am. People had clogged the xway by 3:30 am and were parking in the shoulder! Letting kids out to fend for themselves! There were at least 6 car accidents and several fist fights!

Struck me as a strange way to achieve "the pursuit of happiness" but somehow typical for our hedonist society.  I think the promotions department had one toke too many to come up with that idea!

Thanks for noticing the construction of the poem!

I have just read number 30 for the first time, and I absolutely agree with Nora. I love the sassy, matter-of-fact-ness...it's almost like a "note to self" type dealy-o. Keep 'em comin' Lavonne.

Perceptive Joe! LOL I used to keep a sticky note on my computer that read NO ING'S, ANDS, OR BUTS as a reminder to find new ways to say what I want to say. AND I post things at another very chaotic site full of teeny-boppers, "emos", first timers, etc.  Most of it is crap but isn't every first poem? My little note to myself and a unicorn poem inspired the tongue in cheek advice.  Of course, I've broken ALL my rules...except I haven't written a poem about unicorns - yet.

Fight to the finish

snow
on cherry
blossoms

This reminds me of Pablo Neruda's short, one liner...

"I want to do with you what spring does to cherry trees."

I like your image...isn't this a strange winter/spring? They really are fighting.

Just being somewhere close to being kinda like Neruda - that is high praise. You made me happy!

How a man rests
and a ship sinks


funny
what goes through
the mind of a tired man
who drinks
Irish whiskey

as the evening glides
hour by hour
thinks about
how bad life can be
how good life is for him – for them
how she’s a damn good cook
and a damn bad housekeeper

refills the ice trays
which reminds him
of the Titanic

you know
how the ship sank
chamber by chamber
filling with water

Lavonne, left and right today, I tell ya. This is a keeper. I got to the end and a huge smile washed over my face. I love the simplicity of how you write, it's comforting in a way. I also like how the "hour by hour" mirrors "chamber by chamber," as if the hours that go by in his drinking is a slow decent into the ocean, and death. This works so nicely...I think you should post it.