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Raj Arumugam Oct 2012
Tom of Bungles Company places an order
and  Bond of On-the-Ball Company calls back
and he tells Tom:
“Hey, listen…You’ve ordered another two shipments
of the goods? Look, you haven’t paid for the previous 4 orders
and we can’t ship your new order till you pay for the previous four”


“Oh,” says Tom of Bungles Company
quick and snappy
*“Cancel the order then
We really can’t wait that long”
....another existing joke transformed into verse...might post a poem in a different genre tomorrow...
Raj Arumugam Oct 2012
It was the end-of-year exam
to qualify for the prestigious
Top Class at school
and with his paper
spoiled brat Tommy
handed in a $100 note
to his teacher and winked with a whisper:
“A dollar for each point, Sir;
I know all about percentages”


The next day the teacher returned
the papers to the students
and marked bold on
spoiled brat Tommy’s paper
was: 40%
And the teacher pointed to a $60 note attached
and he said with a wink and whisper:
*“That’s the change, Tommy -
a dollar a point, yeah”
...another existing joke transformed into verse...I think the humour's intact in this one...the verse did not demand much for this one...
Raj Arumugam Oct 2012
1
What my brother-in-law said to me:
Hey, bro…glad to talk to you…
I’m flying in all the way from Canada
in 30 days’ time…yeah, whole family
Wife and the 3 kids
Hey, you ought to get leave for a week –
we’ll stay in your place,
and you can drive us about Victoria…
it’s really my sis and you we want to see…
Yeah, get back to me after you speak
to the people at your workplace



2
What I told my brother-in-law:
I asked my boss,
and he said leave’s not possible…
He needs me to be at work
says he can’t manage without me



What my brother-in-law said back to me:
Oh, we’ll try my wife’s side then
You know, the ones who live in Mauritius
We’d really like to see them…



3
What actually happened
Well, to be honest,
I asked my boss for the week off
and he said:
You’ve let so much work hang for so long
you’d need a whole year to finish
Let me make it plain, you shirker:
This year, you get NO days off


And I shook his hands enthusiastically,
and I said to him:
Thanks, boss – I knew I could always count on you



**...and now I've got my bro-in-law languishing in Canada - and my boss, my colleagues tell me,  feeling perplexed in his office...
...transforming this existing joke into verse demanded a different technique and narrative style...took me quite a while, but I'm happy I got it...and glad my bro-in-law and my boss didn't get 'it'!  (:
Raj Arumugam Sep 2012
so Old Farmer Joe is missing for breakfast
and his wife Mary goes out
to look for her hubby of fifty years
and finds him standing there
in the middle of the field

What are you doing here, darl
asks Mary
standing here in the field?

And dreamy Old Joe says:
I hear they award
a Nobel Prize to those
out standing in their field
I’m going to win, sweetie



Come, let’s go home, darl
says Old Mary
and she guides him,
as he leans on her shoulder,
and he grumbles:
*I knew you’d spoil everything
...another adaptation of an existing joke...but I could not leave the original material as a joke on farmers...also see my previous 2 poems to see a continuity in the theme...
Raj Arumugam Sep 2012
Ah, all of you young and all my children
and all of you lovely ones
You throw us this lovely 50th anniversary party
and you honor me and my beloved wife
And all this food, and all these drinks
and celebration and dance and music…
It moves my heart…and you ask me to tell you
what 50 years of marriage have taught me,
what such a long marriage teaches,
and well, this is what I have learned:
*Well, a long marriage as such teaches you
all the qualities that make one human
and such qualities
I have learned
as loyalty and love and generosity and empathy
and understanding and give-and-take attitude
and the necessity of speech and the necessity to remain silent –
all qualities, and understanding,
dearest friends and my most loved ones,
qualities I need never have acquired O if only I had remained single
...a companion piece to my previous poem: "a pig for the fiftieth"...also based on an existing  joke, and yet they take on layers of meaning they don't seem to have in their prose existence...
Raj Arumugam Sep 2012
1
And it’s fifty years
since Farmer Joe and Mary married
but Joe forgets;
Joe is always in La La land

Darl, do you know what day it'll  be
come Saturday?

says Mary, who’s still got all her teeth

No, says Joe
who's still got strong hands and feet
No, no, no…I don’t know – wait,
what was your question?



2
It’s our fiftieth, darl
says Mary
Let’s have a feast, invite the kids
and the neighbors
– and let’s **** a pig



O, says Farmer Joe
*I don’t know why
the pig’s got to take the blame
for something we did fifty years ago
...another existing poem transformed into verse...I love what happens, and the transformation...
Raj Arumugam Sep 2012
John’s going to be
a first-time father
and he calls the hospital
late in the night
and he screams into the phone:
“My wife’s going to deliver! Help!
She’s screaming! And she says something
about contractions! Help!”


And the duty nurse at the other end
with her cool voice intones:
“Tell me - is this her first child?”

And the anxious first-time father screams:
*“No! No! This is her husband!”
...another existing joke that's evolved into verse...in this, I've tried to make minimal changes to the  prose version - just enough so it becomes mine, and still true to its light-heartedness...
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