Prologue
Until fairly recently, I’ve been what I would call a reluctant poet for much of my life, at least since my 30s, when I decided to try my hand at poetry. Well, that’s not strictly true. My first attempt at poetry came when I was either 8 or 9 years old, and my teacher assigned us a poem to write. I still remember it today. It was called “Baseball,” and it goes like this:
Baseball
By Jimmy Wile
Baseball’s a game that’s lots of fun.
You hit the ball, and then you run.
You catch the ball, and then you throw,
So the man on base cannot go.
It starts with nine men who make a team:
First, second, third base, and a man in between,
A pitcher, a catcher, three fielders also,
And they all put on a very fine show.
That’s all there is; there’s nothing more to say.
I hope you’ve learned how to play baseball today.
If you’re not satisfied, and you want to know more,
Buy “The Little League Rule Book” at your favorite sports store.
Not bad, huh? The meter’s not so great, but it rhymes well.
I may have written one for a high school English class, but I don’t remember it. I didn’t write another until age 30, when I was inspired to write one on my baby daughter’s first birthday. The next one came in like fashion to commemorate the first birthday of my son. These rhymed well, like “Baseball,” but the meter was quite unpolished.
The first, what I would call good poem, was written on the occasion of my father’s 70th birthday and was called “Have Another Pork Chop, Paul.” That will be the first poem in this collection. I consider that one to be the beginning of my poetry-writing journey. It was a sporadic journey, however, and most of my poems, with few exceptions, were to commemorate special occasions—birthdays, graduations, retirements, etc. Poetry did not come too easily to me, and, although I was generally pleased with the results, it was an arduous task for me to write a poem, and I often needed to be begged to do it.
But then came FanStory, which I originally joined in November 2022 to share mainly prose—stories and essays—but eventually began submitting poetry as well. The more I began writing poems, the easier they became to write, and, with the exception of “Have Another Pork Chop, Paul,” all of the poems in this collection were written since I joined FanStory. It’s to the point that poetry is as much or more fun for me to write than prose, and I keep a little notebook to jot down poem ideas when they strike me.
My poems are almost exclusively humor poems, and they rhyme too. Although I respect free verse poems, I still prefer poems that rhyme and have good meter. Where do my poem ideas come from? Beats me. Many just pop into my head for no apparent reason. (A lot of nonsense goes on in there!) Some are also suggested to me by my wife, Elise, who is both my biggest fan and my biggest critic.
Enough of this; let’s move along to the poetry.
Table of Contents
Have Another Pork Chop, Paul
Too Many Characters
The Tuba and the Piccolo
What Real Poets Know
Bad Guy
Wile on the Green
Don’t Laugh
Tough Questions
My Earlobes
The Ballad of Old Blue
Garbage Disposal No-Nos
True Love
Pluto
