AWADmail Issue 663 - Extra
This is a continuation of the compilation of readers’ responses
to the poetry writing invitation. See other poems at AWADmail 663.
CLERIHEWS
Peter Mark Roget
Always looked for the right word to say.
And, therefore, for him
Life was a search for its synonym.
-Claudia Handler, Bearsville, New York (goclaudiahandlergo gmail.com)
Schrodinger’s cat
Would have loved to lounge on a mat.
Instead she sat upright, beady-eyed,
Outstaring a capsule of cyanide.
-Monica Corish, Kinlough, Ireland (monicacorish iol.ie)
Biblical Noah
Collected zoa.
So what did the carnivores eat?
Were herbivores their crunchy treat?
-Maxine Hall Beckner, Clear Lake, Iowa (mbeckner netins.net)
Mary Poppins
Practiced parasol drop-ins.
no need to stuff her carpet bag
In the overhead rack, or suffer jet lag.
-Toby Speed, West Lebanon, New Hampshire (flygal716 gmail.com)
The glorious element, Boron
You’re forgotten, ignored, and sneezed on
Your elemental form is cosmic and rare
But no one really understands thus no one seems to care!
-Eren Tuncer, Melbourne, Australia (eforeren gmail.com)
John Keats
Heard tweets.
It was his pre-computer mail,
A message from the nightingale.
-Meryl Stratford, author of The Magician’s Daughter, Hallandale Beach, Florida (stratword aol.com)
Abraham Lincoln
Was always thinkin’
But it was the Gettysburg address
That made sense of the mess.
-Greg Koch, Westfield, New Jersey (pearlbasin gmail.com)
George Washington, our first president,
Was a Virginia resident
’Twas there he cut down a cherry tree
But couldn’t lie so said ‘twas he!
-Patricia Critchlow (pattycritch comcast.net)
Fox’s Sean Hannity
Puffs up with much vanity
But no one’s more wily
Then false facts man O’Reilly
-Bill Birnes, New Hope, Pennsylvania (wjb1944 earthlink.net)
Reigning FOX star O’Reilly, Bill:
Lie he has and lie he will.
Bloviation, his addiction;
Core of Factor, attacks and fiction.
-Susan Peck, Portland, Oregon (speck peak.org)
William H. Cosby, Ed.D.
Told her, “Take it from me,
This odd-tasting drink
Is what keeps me in the pink.”
-Chris O’Carroll, Pelham, Massachusetts (chrisocarroll yahoo.com)
Our community once had a coffee shop named for Alberto Santos-Dumont, heir to
a Brazilian coffee fortune and an early aviator. The shop had a blackboard for
customer doodlings. At a time when I had encountered “clerihew” elsewhere
from A Word A Day and it was fresh in my mind, I wrote this:
Monsieur Santos-Dumont
That aeronautical bon vivant
Was known to make a scene
Flying on caffeine.
-Patrick Gillam, Lyndeborough, New Hampshire (jpgillam yahoo.com)
Edgar Allan Poe
Had a life filled with woe.
He versified on a raven
While alcohol he was cravin’.
-Dale Roberts, Wilmington, Delaware (DRoberts express-scripts.com)
Kurt Gödel,
Made Russell’s blue blood curdle
With a proof all tight and neat
That showed that math is Incomplete.
-Bradley Alger, Baltimore, Maryland (balgerlab gmail.com)
Mr. Eliot, Thomas Stearns,
(Did Waste Land author never learn?
As big a bigot as a poet?)
For Prufrock’s sake, I pray, don’t show it.
-Bradley Alger, Baltimore, Maryland (balgerlab gmail.com)
Emily Dickinson
Must have ordered in a ton.
Who couldn’t pen a skillion poems
If bothers not to leave one’s home?
-Tina Shen, Florence, Massachusetts (tina_shen me.com)
John Keats
Finding unheard melodies sweet
Spent several phases
Listening to vases.
-Susan Donnelly, Arlington, Massachusetts (sedonne verizon.net)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Was not known as a strong fellow,
But that’s OK, because,
His Village Blacksmith was.
-Laura Burns, Galveston, Texas (laurab12 sbcglobal.net)
Ogden Nash, whom Thalia did anoint,
Would use as many syllables as he needed in a line to make (and rhyme) his point.
I can just hear Ogden gnash
His teeth at clerihews whose assonances have a tendency to clash.
-Gregory B. Gregory, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (gregorgb sbcglobal.net)
Alcott, Louisa May
Was tired of writing and called it a daY
After years trying to finish Jo’s Boys,
She shot one, and gave the others marital joys.
-Rhoda Wills, Berrien Springs, Michigan (rhodaj andrews.edu)
Master plotter Dorothy Sayers
Plots her plots in many layers;
If one should appear flimsy
She’ll just add a little more whimsy.
-Judy Wizowaty, Burlington, Vermont (judywizo comcast.net)
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
After long weary hours of toil
Laid down his pen and wiped his brow:
“I’d sher lock a long cold draft right now.”
-Elinor Clark Horne, Hanover, New Hampshire (elinor.horne valley.net)
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Annoyed Voltaire and Diderot
He scoffed at superfluous luxuries without tact.
Said he: “Read The Social Contract!”
-Michelle de Villiers, Toronto, Canada (geitjieid gmail.com)
Friedrich Nietzsche
Yes, not spelled Nietsche
Said “For the love of God,
God I love not.”
-Lisa Chi, Vienna, Austria (lisachis aol.com)
Hans Christian Andersen
Was Denmark’s literary son
Penned fables, all to please
Of ducks, new clothes, mermaids, and peas.
-Richard Donnan, St. John’s, Canada (rdonnan hotmail.com)
Dr. Who
Goes sailing through
The universe and time
To save us all from monsters-of-crime.
-Andrea Bauman, Appleton, Wisconsin (andrea.g.bauman gmail.com)
Auto man Henry Ford,
Said, “With our colors you’ll never be bored.
No tint or shade or hue do we lack;
You can have your pick, as long as it’s black.”
-Gregor Nelson, California
That Elon Musk
Works dawn to dusk -
Paypal, Space-X, Tesla too -
What’ll he think of next to do?
-Bradley Alger, Baltimore, Maryland (balgerlab gmail.com)
Dr. Manmohan Singh,
As India’s former PM, hardly spoke, let alone sing
That is why a lot of scams arose
And right under his very nose!
-Jasleen Kaur, New Delhi, India (jasleen56 yahoo.co.in)
Pierre Elliott Trudeau,
As middle-aged Canadians know,
Had a quotation muddle
When he exclaimed, “Fuddle duddle”.
-Brenda Silsbe, Victoria, Canada (silsbe shaw.ca)
Barack Obama
Had a Helle of a drama
When at Mandela’s memorial
Michelle was accusatorial.
-Brett Beiles, Durban, South Africa (brett.beiles hardyboys.co.za)
American President Obama
Overseeing the Great Panorama,
Mused, “It seems as if only yesterday
That my hair had not 50 shades of grey.”
-Bill Cartledge, Melbourne, Australia (cartledge.bill gmail.com)
Accused as soft, Barack Obama
Says his critics should query Osama.
Of course, an impossible wish
Since bin Laden now sleeps with the fish.
-Tom Reel, Norfolk, Virginia (tom.reel cox.net)
Michelle, Mrs. Barack Obama
Calm and smiling amid the drama
While her husband tries to solve every mess
She looks fabulous in each dress.
-Samone Angel, Baltimore, Maryland (samone.angel cms.hhs.gov)
Willard Mitt Romney
Tossed with insomnie
Thought, should I lose my third run,
My life’s work is done.
-Bill Birnes, New Hope, Pennsylvania (wjb1944 earthlink.net)
Sarah Palin
Always trailin’
After fame.
Guess that’s her game.
-Nancy R Wilson, Petaluma, California (wilsonna sonic.net)
Rebekah Faith Wright
Massages with all her might.
If you’re in knead,
Call me, I’ll employ the Swede.
-Rebekah Wright, LMT, Warner Robins, Georgia (rebekahwright367 gmail.com)
Barack Obama
Had a Kansan mama
But his African dad
Left, which made mom mad.
-William Peck, Oregon (wpeck reed.edu)
President Obama
Thrives on drama.
But Joe Biden, it seems to me,
Must like comedy.
-Peggy Hayes, Worthington, Ohio (phayes571 wowway.com)
Bill Clinton, Rhodes scholar
You’d think he’d stay cool in the collar
But when asked about his personal biz
He said “depends what the meaning of ‘is’ is.”
-Kenneth A O’Shaughnessy, Simpsonville, South Carolina (kempisosha gmail.com)
President Clinton aka Bill
Played Jack to Monica’s Jill.
They didn’t fetch water
But they did what they hadn’t oughter.
-Robert Ellsworth, Sudbury, Massachusetts (rmexrmd gmail.com)
Consumer advocate, Ralph Nader,
Former President crusader,
Had he only stayed in bed
We’d have had Al Gore instead.
-Bradley Alger, Baltimore, Maryland (balgerlab gmail.com)
Ms. Clinton, nee Hillary Rodham
Liked pant suits from top to bottom
So it truly was an ironic mess
That Bill was done in by a blue dress.
-Batsheva Fullenhull, Dayton, Ohio (b7777777 gmail.com)
Democrat Hillary
Might make history
While Republicans glibly jabber
And would, indubitably, rather stab her.
-Laurie Wack, Maitland, Florida (allwack earthlink.net)
Hillary Clinton
“Here we go again”
Her email thing
Pi((ed off the right wing.
-Donald Blair, Jamesville, New York (dcblair gmail.com)
Over the emails of Hillary
We seem quite ready to pillory.
It appears it will take quite a balm
To ease the headache of dot gov versus dot com.
-Francis Gibbons, Baltimore, Maryland (francisgibbons520 gmail.com)
Clandestine Hillary
(In shades of Billary)
Kept all her emails quite secret--
But now they want all that she ecrit.
-Carol Barton, Annapolis, Maryland (cbartonphd1 verizon.net)
President George W. Bush
Was happy to sit on his tush
While sending his armies to fight
For anything he thought right!
-T.R. Balakrishnan, Chennai, India (tenkasian yahoo.com)
G. Dubya Bush
Mostly sat on his tush,
And when he did not,
What he did turned to rot.
-Donald Friedman, West Orange, New Jersey (dfriedman donaldfriedman.com)
Brave, Brave man George W. Bush
Tipped over a statue & sat on his tush
Jumped into action when he got mad
Saying, “There, I took care of him, Dad.”
-Howard Olivier, Boise, Idaho (howard.olivier gmail.com)
Dick Cheney
Could have used his little brainy.
Alas, in his desire to be great
He launched the Islamic State.
-Eric Wurtz, Fort Collins, Colorado (epwurtz gmail.com)
Condoleezza
Wanted a piece-a
Iraq
So, whack!
-Howard Hoyt, Sunnyvale, California (Ghhoyt aol.com)
Colin Powell
could have run, but he threw in the towel,
leaving the mystery:
Why’d he turned down the chance to make history?
-Janet Anderson, Princeton, New Jersey (dorigen hotmail.com)
John Ellis “Jeb” Bush
Says, “Our family can afford the finest Kush,
And any wife of mine
Can easily pay a jewel smuggling fine.”
-Chris O’Carroll, Pelham, Massachusetts (chrisocarroll yahoo.com)
Israeli Netanyahu
received nary a single “boo”
And with chutzpah, some say aplomb,
Kibitzed our Congress for “No Iran bomb!”
-Laurie Wack, Maitland, Florida (allwack earthlink.net)
Benjamin Netanyahu
Spoke to Congress and created a hullabaloo.
He fears the nukes of Iran
And says he has a better plan.
-Scott Firebaugh, Knoxville, Tennessee (sfirebaugh comcast.net)
Benjamin Netanyahu
Though no Zionist Yahoo?
Would traffic his tank
Through the whole West Bank.
-Kevin Lewis, Columbia, South Carolina (lewiske Mailbox.sc.edu)
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
Who never had a drop of brandy
Proved our thinking could be high
Even if the state was dry.
-Madhusudan Mukerjee, Ahmedabad, India (madhusudan.mukerjee gmail.com)
Saint Patrick
Performed an island-wide hat trick
He sat down to a few pints of stout
After driving all of the snakes out.
-Joseph Connolly, Tinian, Northern Mariana Islands (jjzhou49 hotmail.com)
Pope Julius the Second
said, as he beckoned
Michelangelo to the back of the room,
“Will 42 statues be enough for my tomb?”
-Gail White, Breaux Bridge, Louisiana (gailxpoet cox.net)
Michael Brown
Shot down.
You never hear this press release,
“Unarmed white man shot by police.”
-Chuck Tidd, Moffat, Colorado (cwt29 icloud.com)
Warren Buffett
Said to Miss Muffett,
“I’ll buy your curds and whey
Before the spider scares you away.”
-James B. Edge, Jr., Richmond, Virginia (jedge cornerstone-valuation.com)
Malthus
Worried ‘bout us.
He saw destructive potential
In humanity’s relentless reproduction exponential.
-Alex Landau, Palo Alto, California (oporaca gmail.com)
Scientists Watson and Crick
Found what makes DNA tick,
But Rosalind Franklin also went through much trouble
To finally prove that the helix was double.
-Jeff Reardon, Boston, Massachusetts (jeff.reardon post.harvard.edu)
B.F. Skinner
At dinner;
Talked of pigeons’ pecking rate
And picked at peas upon his plate.
-Bradley Alger, Baltimore, Maryland (balgerlab gmail.com)
Jon Postel
Defined SMTP and did it well
But only about a minute or three
Before much spam had come to be.
-Creede Lambard, Shoreline, Washington (creede gmail.com)
Heisenberg, Werner
Was an exceptionally fast learner,
But Physics took it on the chin,
When he declared “I am uncertain.”
-Bradley Alger, Baltimore, Maryland (balgerlab gmail.com)
Charles Darwin, late of Kent,
Wondered where some species went.
In revealing the theory of selection,
He then prepared us for our own extinction.
-Adam Tamashasky, Bethesda, Maryland (tamashas mail.american.edu)
Charles Darwin
Discovered our Species’ origin
By measuring down to the inches
The beaks of Galapagos’ finches.
-Matt Waters, Long Beach, California (mattw rpv.com)
Anaïs Nin
Caused quite a din
When her husband she’d toast
One on each coast.
-Steve Benko, New York, New York (stevebenko1 gmail.com)
William Shakespeare
The bard whose works all hold dear
From an early age
I learned that all the world’s a stage.
-Ginny Rogers, Prangins, Switzerland (cgrogers bluewin.ch)
Mr. William Shakespeare
Made all his breaks clear
So actors on the stage
Could tell love from rage.
-Maggie Westland, Tucson, Arizona (nanamaggie14 gmail.com)
Mark Twain, né Samuel Clemens
Of modest midwest origins
Transformed himself through wit
Into a Yankee from Connecticut.
-Douglas McMillan, Sedgwick, Maine (dandmmcmillan yahoo.com)
When playing charades James Joyce
Made a mythopoeical choice
He asked his wife to portray Pandora
Yes, I will, yes, yes, oh yes, said Nora.
-Deborah Burns, Massachusetts (deb.burns storey.com)
Sci-fi genius Asimov
Quite overcame the chasm of
Fears of mechanistic psychotics,
By composing three laws of robotics.
-Tim Mooney, Chicago, Illinois (tim_mooney earthlink.net)
T. Wentworth Higginson
Discovered Dickinson.
When appalled by the view,
Helped bury her too.
(Higginson, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, didn’t know what to make
of Emily Dickinson’s poetry when he first saw it in the 1860s. By 1890,
however, he co-edited ED’s first, and posthumous, collection. He served
as a pallbearer at her funeral in 1886.)
-Norbert Hirschhorn MD, London, UK (bertzpoet yahoo.com)
George the Third
Most definitely erred
One can only wonder
At so grotesque a blunder.
-Patrick Tooth, Australia (patrick.tooth uts.edu.au)
South African President JZ
Corrupted everything he could see
Eventually will come a day
When he’ll be put away.
-Conrad Smit, South Africa (consatsa hotmail.com)
Saddam Hussein the dictator
Went to earth like a growing potater
When they found him in a hole in the ground
He was rotten but his teeth were sound.
-Marié Heese, Stilbaai, South Africa (heesem vodamail.co.za)
Attila the Hun,
Survived more battles than one,
But he died of fright
On his wedding night.
-Helen Pringle, Leander, Texas (justicegd aol.com)
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin,
Nostalgia is what he found his roots in.
His people squinting back,
he rarely blows his stack.
-Dominik, Warsaw, Poland (psychology.researcher gmail.com)
Vladimir Putin,
Said, as he put his foot in
Ukraine,
“Nothing to lose, all to gain.”
-J. Michael Sharman, Ilkley, UK (jmsharman btinternet.com)
Vladimir Putin
Is not the one for whom we are rootin’,
Since he became the bane
Of essentially defenseless Ukraine.
-Neal Donner, Los Angeles, California (nealdonner verizon.net)
For Vladimir Putin,
No one is rootin’.
His vision of democracy
Is really a Putocracy.
-Edward Cooper, Carlsbad, California (nobbystiles66 sbcglobal.net)
Governor Scott, bemused
Or perhaps just confused?
Though Miami will soon have an underwater zoo,
The terms “climate change” and “global warming” are now taboo.
-Lori Kohler, Tallahassee, Florida (lori.kohler apdcares.org)
Genghis Khan
Devastated Iran,
Explaining, “I have an aversion
To everything that’s Persian.”
-Peter Desmond cambridge, Massachusetts (taxhombre gmail.com)
Rumpled General U.S. Grant
Was known a bottle or two to decant.
But he led his men less snobbily
Than McClellan, and so whipped Bobby Lee.
-Nell Joslin, Raleigh, North Carolina (ndjoslin nc.rr.com)
General Armstrong Custer
Gathered all the troops he could muster.
At the Greasy Grass River in the June sun
He quickly found out that he was done.
-Lonnie Henderson, Anadarko, Oklahoma (greymountain40 gmail.com)
Martina Navratilova
When visiting the capital of Moldova
Said “Chișinău’s great,
But think I’ll keep Florida my state.”
-Christine Madsen, Olympia, Washington (cterpmadsen comcast.ne)
Mr. Jay Edgar Hoover,
Who ran the FBI forever,
Engendered both criminal fear and private loathing.
He also harbored a penchant for women’s clothing.
-Richard Boutwell, Melrose, Massachusetts (richard.m.boutwell gmail.com)
Dominique Strauss-Kahn
Considered himself quite a Don Juan.
His wife once tolerated his extra-marital sex
But then was too much and now she’s his ex.
-Tom Schlafly, St. Louis, Missouri (TSchlafly thompsoncoburn.com)
Janos, fine critic of music and dance
Writes not by rote, and leaves nothing to chance
This major Magyar-American in town
Writes reviews up as the dancers come down
-Charlie Cockey, Brno, Czech Republic (czechpointcharlie gmail.com)
Ogden Nash
Has humorous poet panache,
My pref’rence though is Dorothy Parker;
Her stuff is (so much more satisfyingly) darker.
-Jef Delman, California (jefdelman gmail.com)
Dorothy Parker, The Round Table Miss
Made bon mots her favorite diss.
Her tongue ran wild, so they say.
The Algonquin shook with repartee.
-Judith Marks-White, Westport, Connecticut (joodth snet.net)
Edward Lear
Said ‘Hist, my dear,
The practice Wordsmith fails to pan
Is that all the verse submitted needs to SCAN.’
-Pippa Lange, Johannesburg, South Africa (pippa.lange mindwork.co.za)
Author Illustrator Ezra Jack Keats,
With collage and paint forming his beats,
Received a Caldecott Medal on his way
For his picture book “The Snowy Day”.
(The subject of this clerihew would have been 99 years old on March 11. He
broke a boundary in children’s literature by writing the first full-color
picturebook, The Snowy Day, to feature a Black child as the protagonist.)
-Virginia McGee Butler, Hattiesburg, Mississippi (vannb comcast.net)
William Shakespeare
Penning insults in “King Lear”
Was particularly pleased with “Thou whoreson zed”
Though in the end it mattered not as they all end up dead
-Brian Beamish, London, UK (brian.3.beamish bt.com)
Edmund Clerihew Bentley
Loved words most intently.
One day he had nothing to do,
So he invented the clerihew.
-Linda C. Dumas, Kingwood, Texas (Lcdumas aol.com)
Edmund Clerihew Bentley
Was heard to say, gently:
It was meant to be a sonnet
Alas, I started too late upon it.
-Bill Simpson, Toronto, Canada (w50gsn gmail.com)
Edmund Clerihew Bentley
Unconcerned with verse length, evidently;
Wrote his rhymes biographical,
Which challenged his printer’s skills, typographical.
-Matt Waters, Long Beach, California (mattrwaters verizon.net)
Mr. Edmund Bentley
Invented something, evidently
And said, “My middle name, I’ll share with you.”
The poem then said, “Pleased to meet you, I’m Clerihew.”
-Jordan Johnston, Brooksville, Florida (Jordanwjohnston hotmail.com)
Mr. Edmund Clerihew Bentley
Did not handle his words gently.
Their wry twists, bends, and mauls
commenced at St. Paul’s.
-Clarinda Luciole, Geneva, Switzerland (bioshannon yahoo.com)
Mr. Edmund Clerihew
At a loss of what to do.
Ran some words around his brain
Condemning us to do the same.
-Peter Eno, Interlaken, New Jersey (peter.leno verizon.net)
Edmund Clerihew Bentley
Did not bequeath gently
His eponymous verse.
It always sounds awkward and terse.
-Ian Sheen, Te Horo Beach, New Zealand (singasheen gmail.com)
Writer E C Bentley, known as Clerihew
Truly was one of the few
Who could invent a new kind of poetry
That is much funnier than trigonometry.
-Nicolas Ribet, Tubuai, French Polynesia (nicorib yahoo.fr)
Moon explorer Neil Armstrong
Took one step, but not for long
Look it up, and you will find
One giant leap for all mankind.
-Bob Thompson, New Plymouth, New Zealand (bobtee xtra.co.nz)
Sir Francis Drake
Was on the take
Though he sailed around capes
He preferred the queen’s drapes.
-Maggie Westland, Tucson, Arizona (nanamaggie14 gmail.com)
Ehrenberg Peter
Is your most loyal reader
In Germany. But his English
Mostly sounds very Denglish.
-Ehrenberg Pit, Senden, Germany (peter.ehrenberg diehl-aircabin.de)
The comedian Stephen Colbert
Took his show, The Report, off the air.
He said, “I have a better plan:
I’ll host Late Night, post Letterman.”
-Emily Joiner, Chapel Hill, North Carolina (emjoiner bellsouth.net)
Julie Andrews as Maria Von Trapp
Put Sound of Music onto the map.
After 50 years
She still gets cheers!
-Dorothy S. Sharp, Douglassville, Pennsylvania (dorothy.sharp stvinc.com)
Amadeus Mozart
(Whose music exceeded most art
Best in sublimity)
Rests in anonymity.
-Don Sweeny, Quincy, Massachusetts (sweeny221 yahoo.com)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
wrote his music from the heart
But sometimes he ran out of money
and that’s when he wrote Don Giovanni.
-Dianne Friedman, Blacksburg, Virginia (dianne.ellen yahoo.com)
Johann Sebastian Bach
Was born in Eisenach.
Nothing can be finer
Than his Mass in B Minor.
-Jean Speiser, West Chester, Pennsylvania (JeanSp Gmail.com)
Taylor Swift
Has a gift.
She can sing,
better than anything.
-Bridget Kenny, New Fairfield, Connecticut (bridget.kenny newfairfieldschools.org)
Actor Leonard Nimoy
Made Spock so much more than a toy.
He left Trekkies in tears
We all miss his ears.
-Margot Brown, Glen Ellyn, Illinois (Margot washingtons.org)
Sir Mick Jagger,
all flash and swagger,
is a full-blown relic
of things psychedelic.
-Sharon Anderson, Hicksville, New York (minibusy1 aol.com)
Yoko Ono
Eschewed the kimono.
She entered the avant-garde
Without trying very hard.
-Laura Burns, Galveston, Texas (laurab12 sbcglobal.net)
Sexy Kim Kardashian
Puzzled about direcshian;
“Kan ye,” she asked, “pass my test?
Create for me, a North from West!”
-Akshara Kumar, Bangalore, India (aksharakumar17 gmail.com)
Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu
Sent this email via Yahoo:
Obama’s deal’s a lousy plan;
Far better we should bomb Iran.
-Henry Putzel and Joseph Wishcamper (hputzel morvillolaw.com)
Queen Marie Antoinette’s
Life was as good as it gets
Until she made the mistake
Of recommending cake.
-Thomas F. Schlafly, St. Louis, Missouri (tschlafly thompsoncoburn.com)
Cinderella
Met a princely fella
At a fancy dress ball,
Where she (deliberately?) let her glass slipper fall.
-Virginia Zurflieh, Plant City, Florida (vzboxers gmail.com)
Wordsmith’s Garg comma Anu
Invites us all to the big to-do
For A.Word.A.Day, so perennial,
Shall celebrate its unvicennial.
-Carolyn Blanco, Findlay, Ohio (carolynblanc marathonpetroleum.com)
Anu Garg’ll
Not stand for any of the old argle-bargle.
He’ll vanquish all verbosity, with his manifest mission:
A deft definition.
-Tom Priestly, Edmonton, Canada (tpriestl shaw.ca)
Wordsmith Anu Garg
Said to himself, “Argh,
As much as I love limericks,
Let’s see some other poetic forms, for kicks!”
-Wilson Fowlie, Coquitlam, Canada (curiousphilomath gmail.com)
The amazing Anu Garg
Delights every day with Wordsmith dot Org.
For twenty-one years he’s done this chore.
Can he keep it up for twenty-one more?
-Margaret Condy, Norwood, Canada (condy nexicom.net)
Anu Garg
Started Wordsmith.org
On March 14, 1994.
It will be 21 years in five days more.
-Rebecca Stadd, Bethesda, Maryland (rcstadd gmail.com)
Wordsmith Anu Garg,
Lover of words and jarg-
on, has sent out a word a day
for 21 years -- HOORAY!
-Ef Deal, Haddonfield, New Jersey (gwynnal aol.com)
Anu Garg
Never aargh
Since March 14, 1994 come what may.
A unvicennial of words to enrich my day.
-Will Bontrager, Lowell, Indiana (will willmaster.com)
Anu Garg of A.Word.A.Day
Unearths words that he’d like to display
Some are particularly insightful
While others are merely delightful.
-Joni Daniels, Toronto, Canada (joni.daniels treefortartists.com)
Wordsmith Garg, Anu
Sends words everyday to you.
21 years he’s been up to his tricks,
As this is how he gets his kicks!
-Eric McKenzie, Brockville, Canada (w.eric.mckenzie gmail.com)
Garg comma Anu
Inspired the Internet to start learning anew
He makes us think
And to our English language creates a link.
-Isaac Mayer, New York, New York (isaacandalfie gmail.com)
In A.Word.A.Day with Anu
The contest begins with a clerihew.
Wordplay is such great fun
When Wordsmith.org is twenty-one!
-Akiva Abrams, Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel (akiva.abrams gmail.com)
Wordsmith Anu
Said to write a clerihew.
After some trepidation and doubt,
I quickly churned one out.
-Ted Zahn, Westminster, California (ted zahns.us)
A poet called Anu
Would really like to pan you
With an easy word like target
So you can learn how to Garg it.
-Mike Young, Sedgefield, South Africa (youmike mweb.co.za)
Anu Garg’s Wordsmith.org
Over twenty one years became a net cyborg;
Lovingly playing with thousands of words
Daily inspiring, exhilarating, moving millions of nerds!
-Leonora Williams, White River, South Africa (williamseleonora gmail.com)
From Anu
A word a-new
Learning new words is such a splendor
If only I were able to remember.
-Thomas E. Quinn, Atlanta, Georgia (TQuinn cornercap.com)
Garg, Anu,
A man of few,
Words sesquipedalian,
But master of words utilitarian.
-Chris Miller, Sydney, Australia (impactplanners fastmail.fm)
The Wordsmith Garg, Anu
Asked us to write a clerihew
On the date of the unvicennial
And for that I am amenable.
-Tom Michael, Gwynedd, Pennsylvania (tandbmichael verizon.net)
Anu Garg, Smith of Words,
Declared his dictionary “for the birds”
Because he knew, to his core,
That, like an eagle, each word does soar.
-Ronnie Raviv, Chicago, Illinois (raraviv99 gmail.com)
Logophiliac Garg, Anu
Reveals fine words each day, anew
Wondrous rare and wondrous fine
And we devour them, line by line.
-Cecil Rose, Apex, North Carolina (alabamao68 nc.rr.com)
Anu Garg, Wordsmith extraordinaire.
But why should we care?
Because our Word-A-Day email
Is our favorite, without fail!
-Diane Gorman, St. Louis, Missouri (the_gormans msn.com)
I wonder if Wordsmith Anu Garg
Has ever been to the Isle of Kharg
To see an ancient monastery
Before this unvicennary.
-Carolyn Blanco, Findlay, Ohio (carolynblanc marathonpetroleum.com)
Lexicographer Anu
Asked us for a clerihew.
The difficulty is to rhyme
So many words in so little time.
-Camille Trentacoste, Napa, California (nycamillet aol.com)
Anu Garg, a wordy fellow
His missives render us a bit more mellow
In God to believe he thinks quite a blunder
But Anu the Old may know more than Anu the Younger.
-Jim Cosgrove, Worcester, Massachusetts (jcosgrove.law verizon.net)
Garg, Anu
Like Mork’s “Nanu”
Explores the Universe
To illuminate words--now verse!
-Joan Reisman-Brill, New York, New York (jreismanbrill gmail.com)
EPIGRAMS
An epigram should sound
Witty, yet be profound.
-Douglas McMillan, Sedgwick, Maine (dandmmcmillan yahoo.com)
An epigram too often represents
The poet’s wit outwitting common sense.
-Rob Stuart, Staines-Upon-Thames, UK (robstuart outlook.com)
Epigram:
Be concise,
But add spice!
-Akiva Abrams, Ramat Beit Shemesh, Israel (akiva.abrams gmail.com)
An epigram is short and sweet,
It makes its point, to then retreat.
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)
’Tis no myth
There’s power in pith.
-Cindy Lamb, Louisville, Kentucky (lambscribe aol.com)
Fowler says, “Be brief.”
A relief.
-Karen Alpha, Corning, New York (blackberry939 hotmail.com)
To avoid becoming a bore,
Just remember: less is more.
-Lisa DeSiro, Cambridge, Massachusetts (ldesiro gmail.com)
Mentally just as we hit our peak
Why do our bodies have to turn antique?
-Marsha Pearl Jamil, White Plains, New York (ccsmspearl aol.com)
In music, form and style should fit.
If it ain’t Baroque, don’t fugue it.
-Mark Engel, Ben Lomond, California (mark.engel1 mac.com)
Beware the dog that bites the poet;
When Doggerel rises, men will know it.
-Nora Francis, Vancouver, Canada (narf shaw.ca)
Fight fire with water,
Only fools rage hotter.
-Glen Truebody, Somerset West, South Africa (truebs telkomsa.net)
You can text her, you can tweet her
But a hug is always sweeter.
-Alan Draeger, New York, New York (adraeger hotmail.com)
Now AIs give, next AIs take,
Let’s hope machines kind masters make.
-Bradley Alger, Baltimore, Maryland (balgerlab gmail.com)
Snails
Leave trails.
(Observation of an amateur naturalist on her early morning walk)
-Claire Trazenfeld, Crownsville, Maryland (ctraze gmail.com)
Nature abhors a vacuum.
As does your mom, I presume.
-Rick Marriner, Augusta, Maine (richard.marriner maine.gov)
Arms of jello
Means no cello.
-Casey Bonanno, Alexandria, Virginia (bonanno.casey gmail.com)
To remain alive
Don’t text and drive.
-Dale Roberts, Wilmington, Delaware (DRoberts express-scripts.com)
A word with some pith planted at the right time,
Grows into an epigrammatical rhyme.
-Joni Daniels, Toronto, Canada (joni.daniels treefortartists.com)
For Anu I write an epigram too brief,
A logomaniac with dedication beyond belief!
-Dick Ellis, Santee, California (2dellis cox.net)
Lo! My inbox holds a new word, my daily passion,
My morning Garg-le, an all day cerebral K-Ration!
-Larry Ray, Gulfport, Mississippi (callball bellsouth.net)
Not too light with that red ink,
Coddling teaches none to think.
-Carolyn Blanco, Findlay, Ohio (carolynblanc marathonpetroleum.com)
Good marriages are
Delightful -- from afar.
-Leah Abramowitz, Jerusalem, Israel (abe.leah gmail.com)
The leaves, trees, animals, and weather;
All pass on, like the falling of a feather.
-Jason Rakowsky, New Fairfield, Connecticut (jason.rakowsky newfairfieldschools.org)
A little coke
Will fell a great bloke. (after Ben Franklin)
-Jerry Lightfoot, Plano, Texas (jjfoot tx.rr.com)
English majors have it tough.
They make words pay, but not enough.
-Kate Ashworth Rogers, Albany, New York (katerogersmat gmail.com)
If everyone would keep to themselves their own belief
For the rest of us, it would be a great relief.
-David Gillett, Montclair, New Jersey (dgillett gmail.com)
A word a day
Keeps brain cobwebs away!
-Hilary Shughart, Logan, Utah (hilary.shughart gmail.com)
CENTOS
Lord, what fools these mortals be, (Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
Rushing where angel’s fear to tread, (Alexander Poe, An Essay on Criticism)
From sea to shining sea, (Katherine Lee Bates, America the Beautiful)
As horses to water led. (Old English Proverb)
-Jerry Lightfoot, Plano, Texas (jjfoot tx.rr.com)
My beloved, spake and said unto to me
I’ll tell you how the sun rose
A lovely thing to see
I saw the rosy sun’s calm light
And the day’s at the morn
The year’s at the spring
The lark’s on the wing
Up! Up! my Friend, and quit your books
Enough of science and of art
As a youth, I picked flowers from the meadow
The wind blows gently, fresh and cool
Who has seen the wind?
The smell of blue grapes is sweet...
The poetry of earth is never dead
What is so rare as a day in June?
How can we ever lose interest in life?
(Line 2: Emily Dickinson “I’ll tell you how the sun rose”
line 15 James Russell Lowell “Vision of Sir Launfal”
The other lines are from 11 of the poems in the book
ART & NATURE: An Illustrated Anthology of Nature Poetry)
-Mary I. Mazeau, Deer Park, New York (mimazeau verizon.net)
TRIFLE
Nothing like it ever was; (Carl Sandberg)
they had eaten every one (Lewis Carroll)
By the shores of Gitche Gumee (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
to the shores of Tripoli (Marine Hymn)
on the road to Mandalay (Rudyard Kipling)
ignorant armies clash by day (Matthew Arnold)
Though the rain is full of ghosts (Edna St. Vincent Millay)
And not a field of war (Muriel Rukeyser)
There is yet a road not taken (Robert Frost)
We are masters of our fate (William Henley)
Tiger, tiger, burning bright (William Blake)
walks in beauty like the night (Lord Byron)
-Maggie Westland, Tucson, Arizona (nanamaggie14 gmail.com)
ROMANTIC-MODERNE CENTO
In Xanadu
The lone and level sands stretch far away;
The bird’s fire-fangled feathers dangle down.
Whose woods are these?
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Ripe apples drop about my head.
My soul into the boughs does glide;
There like a bird it sits and sings,
Then whets, and combs its silver wings.
White owl flies in and out of the field --
Petals on a wet, black bough
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy.
The primrose flares its baby hands
And moveless fish in the water gleam.
The empty moon,
Staring with her bone-white eye.
Drifts up the azure-arched lagoon.
Wander lonely as a cloud
and shut our eyes, not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
Til human voices wake us
And we drown.
-Alexandra Halsey, Seattle, Washington (alexandra.s.halsey gmail.com)
Poems referenced:
Ozymandias - Percy Bysshe Shelley
The Palm at the End of the Mind - Wallace Stevens
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening - Robert Frost
The Cliffs of Dover - Matthew Arnold
The Garden - Andrew Marvell
The Beetle - James Whitcomb Riley
White Owl - Mary Oliver
Ulysses - Alfred, Lord Tenneyson
Silver - Walter de la Mare
Dreams - Mary Oliver
Daffodils - William Wordsworth
When you are old and grey and full of sleep, (1)
And the soul wears out the breast, (2)
Remember Lennon and McCartney said it best, (3)
Love is all you need. (4)
-Joe Finn, Boston, Massachusetts (jfinn mhsa.net)
(1) When You Are Old (W.B.Yeats)
(2) We’ll Go No More a Roving (Lord Byron)
(3) Remember (Finn)
(4) All You Need is Love (John Lennon/Paul McCartney)
LIMERICKS
I endeavored to write a limerick that was clean
One that was wholesome and uplifting, not obscene
Without d*** s**t or H***
No c*** or f*** as well
But it sucked a**, if you know what I mean.
-Kenneth A O’Shaughnessy, Simpsonville, South Carolina (kempisosha gmail.com)
There once was a pol in D.C.
Who promised her crumpets and tea.
When he gave his cigar
He pled near and far
That all depends on the meaning “to be”.
-James B. Edge, Jr., Richmond, Virginia (jedge cornerstone-valuation.com)
Some limericks I know are so dirty
They would fail the spell-check on my qwerty
Even my wife
Wants to ban them for life
Or restrict them to those over 30.
-Bob Thompson, New Plymouth, New Zealand (bobtee xtra.co.nz)
There was a young man in a truck
And crossing the road was a duck
He avoided the bird
And also the word
You were thinking, Oh baby, what luck!
-Mark Caywood, Fort Worth, Texas (markcaywood att.net)
At first she was as preti,
As abominable yeti,
But, ones and twos,
Of beer and booze -
She’s quite ravishing on my seti.
-Jerry Lightfoot, Plano, Texas (jjfoot tx.rr.com)
(This limerick is in the form of an ANAGRHYME, a term that I coined for an ANAGRAM/RHYME. If you rearrange the letters in ALLCAPS words, correctly, the poem will rhyme. It’s also R-rated)
It’s surprising, the ratio,
Of long marriages to FETAL OIL. (1word)
Of girls who cling us,
To SLUICING NUN - (1word)
The numbers amaze me so!
-Jerry Lightfoot, Plano, Texas (jjfoot tx.rr.com)
There once was a lady named Lynne,
Who tried very hard to stay thin,
But chocolates and wine
And going out to dine
Pushed her silhouette out, not in.
-Lynne Kloot, Simon’s Town, South Africa (lynnekloot heatpump.co.za)
My attempts to write good limericks
Have reduced my readers to hysterics
They’re delighted to think
Just how low I could sink
In confusing rhetoric and obstetrics.
-Ginny (Carmen) Rogers, Prangins, Switzerland (cgrogers bluewin.ch)
It’s been 19 years , quite long time,
That we’ve done daily Partners-In-Rhyme,
With day’s Wordsmith pick,
Featured LIMERICK,
A pairing completely sublime!
-Chris Papa, Colts Neck, New Jersey (doxite verizon.net)
A spherical fellow named Mike
Put a leaf-blower jet on his bike
When they asked “What the hey?”
He had just this to say:
“To pedal is worse than a hike!”
-Gregory B. Gregory, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (gregorgb sbcglobal.net)
I must confess that religion
Is not exactly my pigeon.
I seldom debate
And try not to hate,
But maybe I do just a smidgen.
-David Gillett, Montclair, New Jersey (dgillett gmail.com)
An alien came down from the Void.
I was abducted (and slightly annoyed!).
He probed me awhile,
Then said with a smile,
“You’ve got a mighty fine asteroid!”
-Eric K. Sorensen, Marengo, Wisconsin (eric.k.sorensen lycos.com)
Why, pray tell, choose county Limerick, and not fair Clare
Are Clarions just not as ribald and clever o’er there?
Or say counties Sligo, Down, or Cork
Bawdy Irish word-play at work
Would give us a ‘corker’, beats a ‘downer’... to be fair.
-Alex McCrae, Van Nuys, California (ajmccrae277 gmail.com)
(In celebration of St. Patrick’s Day)
There was a young man from Dun Laoghaire
Who was downcast, depressed, and quite taoghaire
Said the barmaid, “No doubt,
We can cure you with stout.
Have a Guinness, and then you’ll feel chaoghaire!”
(You could always substitute “ porter” for “Guinness” if needed, and as
you’ve probably worked out, Laoghaire is pronounced “leary”)
-Lennox Munro, Altadena, California (lennoxmunro sbcglobal.net)
There was a young man from Delhi
Who, they say, had a fire in his belly,
And that crucial X factor
Which makes a great actor
And the Khan was born on the Telly.
-Madhusudan Mukerjee, Ahmedabad, India (madhusudan.mukerjee gmail.com)
I once was a late sixties’ radical.
My thoughts, sometimes, were fanatical.
But now, with Obama,
I’ve become rather calmer
And taken an eight-year sabbatical.
-Peter Desmond, Cambridge, Massachusetts (taxhombre gmail.com)
Our newspapers once made from logs
Fall victim to tweets, chats, and blogs.
Stand firm and refuse!
For what will we use
For garbage, canaries, and dogs?
-Susan L. Vlasuk, Bellevue, Washington (slvlasuk gmail.com)
Limericists are poetic traditionalists,
Albeit avowed exhibitionists.
Five lines anapest,
Each cleverly expressed,
Prove they’re not aabbalitionists!
-Sue Wright, Austin, Texas (Suelwright aol.com)
Said a limber dude from Saratoga,
“Some folks call me rubbery rogue, a
Transgressor who’s twisted,
Because I’ve persisted
In auto-affectionate yoga.”
-Chris O’Carroll, Pelham, Massachusetts (chrisocarroll yahoo.com)
“Oh Nay”, cried the milkmaid risqué,
“I’ll not auction me wiles on eBay!
’Tis too much fascination,
With procrastination!
There’s quicker rewards in the hay!”
-Susan J. Hamer, Sweeny, Texas (crittersittera1 gmail.com)
There was a young fellow whose nose
Stretched all the way down to his toes
It made him madder
To climb a ladder
Just to smell the scent of a rose.
-Brian Beamish, London, UK (brian.3.beamish bt.com)
Dear Anu, don’t cover in curses,
Rodney who wrote all these verses.
No harm or intent
Was implied, thought, or meant,
Just wit, as anything terse is.
-Rodney Mazinter, Camps Bay, South Africa (mavrod iafrica.com)
There once was a man who loved words
To the point where it became quite absurd
He would publish each day
An email to say
Here’s a new one I bet you ain’t heard.
-Kate Ashworth Rogers, Albany, New York (katerogersmat gmail.com)
Dedicated logophile Smith
Had developed worldwide kith
With a first name of “Word”
He was a bit of a nerd
And an ardent purveyor of pith.
-Richard S. Russell, Madison, Wisconsin (RichardSRussell tds.net)
DOGGEREL
My words have fallen on hard times
To be stuffed into pitiful rhymes
But if there’s one thing that I can
Then it’s making lines scan
So I don’t have to fit any more words than is absolutely necessary into
the last line as I possibly can.
-Brian Beamish, London, UK (brian.3.beamish bt.com)
WHAT A DIFFERENCE A DAY MAKES
I placed an order for a Hot Fudge Sundae.
They wouldn’t serve me;
They said it was Mondae.
-Don Lewis, Boca Raton, Florida (teledon bellsouth.net)
The hound is bound to be found;
The setter is better when wetter;
The dane is a pain when vain;
The beagle’s a legal eagle;
The pup is up to sup;
The mutt is but a nut;
The poodle likes to doodle;
The pooch likes to smooch;
The terrier is merrier;
The collie is jolly;
The husky is musky;
The retriever’s a deceiver;
The pug is a thug;
The canine is fine.
-Ross Burkhardt, Las Cruces, New Mexico (ross1962 me.com)
There’s nothing stinkier than a dog
Not even a big fat hog
Sitting on a log
Next to a frog
Eeek! in a bog
Just another cog
In the wheel of life,
Strife!
-Perry Thapa, Bagmati, Nepal (perrythapa gmail.com)
I write using a 56” touch-nose display
I practice my art every day
You call it doggerel
But for me Canis versatile
Better hits what a Cardigan Welsh Corgi
Named Gimli has writ ... Hold on a second! SQUIRREL!
-Gimli Dog, c/o John Purvis, Milford, Connecticut (mr.johnpurvis gmail.com)
I think it is unusual
For a contest to solicit doggerel
None of the entries, I would bet
Are from a future laureate
This time the judge is rootin’
For something far less high falutin.
-Douglas McMillan, Sedgwick, Maine (dandmmcmillan yahoo.com)
After coming up with a clerihew
Epigram, cento, and limerick, too
My lyrical lobe is all worn out
So this one is doggerel, no doubt!
-Dale Roberts, Wilmington, Delaware (DRoberts express-scripts.com)
A doggerel that’s not classy,
Is told of a collie named Lassie,
When approached by a mutt,
She replied, “I’m no slut,
If you want satisfaction,
Try some action with Rin Tin Tin.”
-Joan Perrin, Port Jefferson Station, New York (perrinjoan aol.com)
There was an old man from the West
Who wore nothing but shoes and a vest.
Plus socks when it snowed
on account of the cold.
(I am feeling unsteady; This seems to have gone off the rails already.)
One fine day in the spring
the old guy went on a fling.
And he went to the zoo
Just for something to do.
The monkeys were impressed
at the way he was dressed.
And the jackels were, if not quite green with envy,
at least suitably impressed (blank verse).
The snakes were disdainful - one called him “Stubby” -
another “Fats”, and another “Chubby”.
The old guy, for his part
(no, nothing rhymes with part)
was happy to ignore the snakes
but enjoyed watching the monkeys.
You perhaps thought the poem would end with the old guy getting arrested
for exposing himself to animals.
It wasn’t quite like that
but a Sunday School teacher leading a class while wearing a hat
was overcome with emotion and a keeper was called
and the old guy was hauled into a back office
and required to put on a keeper’s uniform.
It actually suited him well
though he did not like the smell
(it had last been worn by the elephant keeper during the unfortunate urination incident)
But after several washings it was pretty good
Which has a happy ending, as all light poems should.
-Bill Simpson, Toronto, Canada (w50gsn gmail.com)
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