Best Biddle Poems
Driving past our old home on Glenwood Avenue
Memories came to life from my childhood days
Going over the park, Mom. I'll be in before ten
Got a game of hide and seek. Everyone plays
We'd take a bottle of yoo-hoo or nu-grape to drink
In winter on Clark Street there was an ice skating rink
A pack of luckies in our shirt sleeve thinking we were cool
The Bungalow was our community pool
There were Friday night dances in the gym at Saint Jerome
Maybe a stop at the Coffee Cup while we were walking home.
Movies at the Majestic and Victoria were great
Fan buses for away games. We'd get back late.
American Billiard Academy was where the balls were racked
No seat at the home game because the stadium was packed
Under the state store, the Y M C A
At the Vic a Saturday matinee
A baseball game with a sponge ball and fist
In the school's gymnasium, doing the Twist
Middle Ward playground, the movie was free
Adjusting the picture on the old T V.
A class trip on school buses to Hershey Park
Sleigh ride down Snake Hill in the cold and the dark
Walking the coal bank by Number Fourteen
Stopping at Mike's to play the pinball machine
On Biddle Street, we'd sit on the cemetery wall
Jumping into piles of leaves in the early fall
Then I stopped at Dutch Hill Park for a while
Memories of Tamaqua always make me smile.
Unlikely
this romance between
Miss Cricket
and stodgy
Buddy Biddle, so stagnant
set in his ways, stuck
While Cricket
eighty-nine years young
dances rings
around him
full of impish energy
mischievous antics
He proposed
but Miss Cricket won't
marry him
knows better
she's outlived countless lovers
and won't be tied down
She's having
way too much fun- so
fancy-free
no one to
boss her, tell her what to do
woman on the loose
Anyway
he's too old for her
'though only
eighty-four
he can't keep up or begin
to understand her
And he has
hang-ups about sex
proper, prim
prudish ways
appalled at her passionate
kisses, advances
Waggish grin
wild, irreverent
she enjoys
shocking him
with outlandish behavior
incorrigible
Some days he
says he can't take it
she's too much
gone too far
with her pranks- but he gets so
lonely without her
And 'though he
hates to admit it
life is dull
without her
she makes things interesting
by being herself
(NOTE: Although I listed this as a Free Verse, it is actually in Shadorma form...)
Mrs. Lightfoot had taught music at Talbot Elementary School for years.
A couple of her pupils excelled in music but most became engineers.
She sat at her desk to muse upon the past after another trying day,
Recalling events that had contributed to the 'dyeing' of her hair gray!
She remembered concerts when the cacophonous din made her wince,
And Mrs. Lightfoot approached such musicals with foreboding ever since.
But beaming parents saw their prodigies destined for musical acclaim.
(Only one she knew strummed a banjo at the VFW with a modicum of fame!)
Tubby Aruba wrestled with his tuba, ever out of step in the marching band.
Sissie Pyaner tried to emulate Liberace but she battered the concert grand.
For some reason one of the valves on Clyde Crumpet's trumpet always stuck,
And the trombone players could never harmonize - such was their bad luck!
Pat Claret could never adjust her clarinet reeds to eliminate the squeaks.
'Tyke' Biddle fiddled with the bull fiddle but never mastered its techniques.
Hubie Crums thought he was Gene Krupa and went crazy on the drums.
And when it came to playing the French horn, Sydney Corne was all thumbs!
Many times Mrs. Lightfoot thought she'd chosen the wrong speciality path,
And oft' wondered if she should have majored in history or maybe math.
In a couple of years she could lay down her baton one last time and retire,
To reminisce about fatal concerts, bleating horns and inharmonious choir!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(c) 2014 All Rights Reserved
Mrs Biddle had a cat called Tiddle,
Tiddle had a wiggle in a basket, by the side of Mrs Biddle,
Mrs Biddle wasn't pleased,
she had to get down on her knees,
to clean the wiggle that the cat called Tiddle
had made by the side of Mrs Biddle.
Mr Biddle came walking in,
phew, whats that smell shrieked Mr Biddle,
as someone in the house had a wiggle.
the cat called Tiddle had a wiggle, right in a basket by my side
there, there, the cat feels better, now he's had a wiggle
sighed Mr Biddle.
Mrs Biddle glared at Mr Biddle and frowned at the cat called Tiddle
for doing a wiggle in a basket at the side of Mrs Biddle
that was the story of Mrs Biddle and the cat called Tiddle.
I was told when I was little
Of Bad Boy Napper, Betty Biddle
Betty Biddle bad boy napped
Even made a bad boy trap
She filled it up with dirty shoes
Grease and grime and gooey ooze
Betty knew bad boys can't wait
To jump right in to bad boy bait
Betty sat smiling in her swing
Waiting for her trap to spring
Betty Biddle stole bad boys
If they wouldn't share their toys
Off they went to the Land of Share
And she fed them to a Selfish Bear
For those who didn't clean their room
She took them off on a Sweeping Broom
Into the land of Do It Later
She fed them to a Procrastigator
Those who sassed their mom and dad
Were hauled off to the Land of Bad
She sliced and diced them in a vat
And fed them to the Talk Back Bat
Bad boys who skipped from school
End up in the Land of Fool
Drowning in the Dummy Pool
Eaten by the Stupid Ghoul
She stole bad boys from every town
Strung them up and tied them down
Took them to the Land of Gone
Forever buried in her lawn
Bad Boy Napping Betty Biddle
Stole bad boys when they were little
But I never knew that Betty Biddle
Cause I was an angel when I was little
I need a nonsense poem today.
To sooth my heart, to laugh and play.
I need a silly poem for me.
To make me frolic, laugh and see.
Fiddle faddle, dum diddly dee.
Diddle daddle, this is the life for me.
Piddle paddle, where on earth should we be?
Middle maddle, a child of the sea.
It makes my heart feel super fun.
It helps to let the nightmares run.
It makes me happy as can be.
A silly poem, which sets me free.
Riddle raddle, dum diddly dee.
Siddle saddle. This is my daily plea.
Biddle baddle. What is the point of me?
Kiddle kaddle. How happy can we be?
The naysayers are rolling their eyes right now.
They do not laugh. They do not “wow”.
A nonsense poem. Why do you have a need of this?
For it soothes my heart, like a gentle kiss.
Widdle waddle, waking me up in my head.
Ziddle zaddle, moving me from pink to red.
I need a silly poem for me.
To make me frolic, laugh and be.
Amber Heard's dog stepped on me
and I'm just a little biddle bee
So I stung his foot with my stinger
and gave that dog an awful ringer
Wouldn't you know my story was told
by many news outlets searching for gold
But I'm just a bee looking to be free
please don't overjudge me
Monday, May 30, 2022
Bee Creative Poetry Contest
Sponsored by: Matt Caliri
Summon your demons, devils, and wraiths,
visit moments of hurt and loss.
Replay what might have been, wrestle with regrets,
Do “if only” scenes haunt your past?
I follow the faint ribbon of sand on Mackinac Island,
lined with sugar maple tree, aspen and lilac.
Wild lilly of the valley, its fragrant musk, from dusk to dawn,
clings to lichen and headstone,
in the old cemetery at the end of Lime Kiln Road.
I am as ghostly as the local specters.
The fine young military boy,
eyes wild and strange,
wandering across the old rifle range,
striving to collect his remit.
Payment for the murder he did not commit.
Or darling Miss Biddle, only eight years old.
They handed her Mama her green Christmas coat.
Drowned when the ice cracked, no-one saw.
Lost in a snowstorm on the island of Mackinac.
Ghosts are so practical. They wander, they howl,
always in the same place, always the same sound.
Patient in time eternal, that their fate will dissolve or resolve.
My earthly body moves through life,
restless in my quest to change the past.
Spirits moan, I am not lost.
I close my eyes and dance with my ghosts.
the jazz-playing giraffe is on the sax and bob is on the fiddle
Let’s do some dancing down the hill and meet in the middle
I loved what I was hearing from my auntie Doris, Diddle Biddle.
Ended up staying out all late with a friend who tells a great riddle.
Rutherford Rugola was a witch with supernatural powers.
The forest trees were in awe when she appeared with her fulcrum.
Once every twenty-two years on a September with showers.
She tossed crazy things into her rainbow-generating cauldron.
“Spittle Biddle Born and Diddle
I conjure my ancestors, they’re second fiddle
Beebalow Deebalow, Schimmy Shoo
I summons the magic ones, Herfrog and Toodleoo”
Forest animals ran to the meadow when they heard her chant.
She can turn us into goats and ghouls, they said with scream or sigh
A rainbow haze filtered out of her cauldron with a fanciful slant
Someone will soon be transmogrified when she catches their eye