Original new poems from Chacha Joe,
                        the Funniest poet on the web

It was quite strange to find myself added to that list of people
whose access to the internet has been interrupted.   Not that I
have continuous access;  far from it.   But by and large I have
at worst short delays when I do want to go on-line.

It happened, a couple of Sundays back, that I was driving back
home in the late afternoon and, turning a corner near home, came
upon an accident with a badly dented car, a police car and a
motley assortment of neighbours standing about.

When I got home the phone was dead - so no internet.   Gradually
I realised that the car must have ploughed (plowed if you must!)
through the telephone junction box which stands on that corner.
Or stood, to be more accurate.

Mark you I must congratulate our BT (once our nationalised
British Telecommunications - part then of the Post Office)
engineers;  my phone was back on line before Monday mid-day.
So I promise not to do a funny poem about BT;   not this issue,
anyway.

Have you ever lost a week?   Your memory tells you you did
something the week before, but suddenly another week has
intervened?   Well, I'm going to blame artistic temperament;
so apologies for being a week late with this issue.

The second annual Fiffi Parade blocked traffic in central
Berlin this month.   Three thousand pets took their owners on a
three-mile march to protest for more rights and for public
tolerance.   It must have been the drivers that got barking mad
that time.   (Barking mad - or just barking - is a euphemism for 
round the bend or up the twist or one sandwich short of a picnic.   
In other words, in PC terms, psychologically disadvantaged.)

And now Cyprus cab drivers are in line for makeovers!  Out with
hairy belly buttons, the thick gold chains, the fist full of
sovereign rings, ugly tattoos, shorts showing hairy legs... and
even flip-flops.   But isn't that what 2.5 million visitors a
year flock to see?

Back to Berlin for the story of the traveller whose airline
luggage turned up a quarter of a century late (and you thought
you had trouble).   He didn't want to see his out of date
disco-era garb, but his wife insisted.   I suppose she needed a
good laugh.

And that, I hope, is what I have for you below.

Till the next time, your humour poet,

Chacha Joe (a.k.a. Joseph Harris)

~-~-Take Care on the Road
~-~-No Roar of Racing Engine
~-~-Dotty Ditties (number 181) Gerbils are no Joke

~-~-Policy and Privacy
~-~-join/unjoin
~-~-copyright

~-~-Prayer at the end - Hurricane Isabel Blows in the Wind

Take Care on the Road

I can see in the rear view mirror
How I'm combing my hair,
And on the phone I'm talking
To that driver - over there.

This sandwich is quite tasty,
Now I'll just open this can.
Oi!!   Watch where you're driving --
Now, there's a stupid man.

Is that lipstick he's applying?
Oh!   A protective balm.
And  the book upon his steering wheel -
I'm sure he'll come to harm.

Well, I'll just check my mail,
At sixty I'm not going so fast;
Hm.   I'd better write a cheque for this...
BANG!   OUCH!   What has come to pass?

......

Well Officer all would be well;
My habits do me suit.
The cause of this terrible accident
Is that fool playing his flute.
by Chacha Joe at the petrol (gas) station


copyright ?©2003 Joseph Harris www.smilepoetryweekly.com

A study for the American Automobile Association (AAA) by North
Carolina's safety research centre reveals a horrifying catalogue
of self-imposed distractions by drivers.   These are said to
cause a quarter of all accidents.

It was in Berlin, again, that police caught a motorist
travelling at 80 miles an hour (128 kmph) on a busy road playing
the flute and steering with his knee and a foot!    'I wasn't
actually blowing,' says this nut, 'just practising fingering.'

Nut is another euphemism for barking mad!

No Roar of Racing Engine

No roar of racing engine
No stench of burning rubber
No chequered flag or hairpin bend
No heart-stopping for his mother.
He pushed his foot down to the floor
With skill, he was no lubber.

No Brrrmm, no gear, no pit stop nor
A points-producing race
But just a souped-up milk float
In a single vehicle chase.
Electric engine hummed and sang
As the Welshman drove with grace.

To speed the British pinta
To doorsteps - every one -
The space age milk float cometh.
So!  Not faster than a gun.
And then how much more fresh the milk -
Something new under the sun?

He carried no milk bottles,
No cartons, spuds or cheese;
Made no deliveries on the way -
So just who did this please?
by Chacha Joe muttering about osteoporosis.

Last month  Richard Rozhon, a Welsh racing driver, drove a
specially engineered, but unloaded, milk delivery float at 73
mph (112 kmph).   On the same day a conventional milk float was
tested to 50 mph (80 kmph).   Most of their working life milk
floats (which look like - er, sort of - small pick-up trucks)
travel in twenty-yard (around 22m) jumps as the milkman delivers
to the houses on his round.

Milk delivery started centuries back in Britain, but the rise of
the supermarket looks like ending that tradition, just as the
rise of the large milk firms destroyed the small
farmer/deliverer.   I can just remember our elderly milkman
sitting in the kitchen having a cup of tea - his horse and small
cart in the road outside - and saying he was about to sell out
to Express Dairies, one of the, then growing, home delivery
giants.

lubber = big, clumsy man
milk float = originally designed to carry (heavy) glass bottles
of milk in metal (later plastic) crates.   Because of the stop
start nature of travel they were early into electric motors,
maybe 35 years ago.
spud = potato;  'Spud' is often the nickname for any Irishman
named Murphy (another potato synonym), and comes from the
reliance of the Irish on the potato up to the time of the potato
famine, when potato blight destroyed a major part of the crop.
That was when the great Irish migration to America began.
	  

DOTTY DITTIES

Dotty Ditty 181

Gerbils are no Joke

In far-Western China there's problem on four legs
As it burrows with a will in grassland plain.
And to beat it there's a plan to hatch an awful lot of eggs
That will save the grassland areas that remain.

Well, the size of a Great Gerbil means they dig a largish hole
And the damage that that does is quite severe.
So the eagle has been a given a most important role -
It is a bird e'en the biggest rodents fear.

But there are not many eagles in China or elsewhere.
And so a breeding programme has begun -
But it takes a longish time a new eagle to prepare;
Meanwhile the grassland gerbils have their fun.

by Chacha Joe

The Great Gerbil is not the friendly little creature that is
often kept as a pet;  this one grows to sixteen inches (around
40cm) long.   Under threat is nearly 12 million acres of
grassland in central Asia.   Over 80,000 acres have already been
destroyed, by these creatures and other rodents.

It is described as the most severe rodent disaster since 1993.
Great Gerbils are also carriers of bubonic plague;   I bet you
really wanted to know that!	  

A LITTLE PRAYER AT THE END

Hurricane Isabel Blows in the Wind

Long is Thy arm o'er the face of the earth,
Sunshine and shower we feel;
Arid the desert and cold the high mount.
Ice, on deep waters, may seal.

Hurricane Isabel blows in the wind

Seas may be strong
Or calm as a lake -
A tsunami, maybe, or a ripple they make.

Hurricane Isabel blows in the wind

Now we are learning, that we may know,
The hazards which climate change bring.
Thus are we finding our harbours of safety,
And for that saved life we sing.

Hurricane Isabel blows in the wind