.
| Hearsay: |
Oh, god, this is delicious. (From BoingBoing) I’d sense another contest coming on, if we’d had more than 10 responses to the last one….
January 2006
December
2005
November
2005
October
2005
September
2005
August
2005
July
2005
June
2005
May
2005
April
2005
March
2005
February
2005
January
2005
December
2004
November
2004
October
2004
September
2004
August
2004
July
2004
June
2004
May
2004
April
2004
March
2004
February
2004
January
2004
December
2003
November
2003
October
2003
September
2003
August
2003
Bookninja © Copyright
The opinions expressed on this site are those of individual participants
and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the site owners,
organizers, or other participants.
[powered by WordPress.]
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:44 am
Okay, I’ll bite:
The Lady of Shalott sat weaving,
locked in a tower, and grieving,
but when she saw Lancelot,
she took a rowboat to Camelot,
where they found her adrift and not breathing.
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:23 am
Did someone say bite?
A man named J.R. tries to teach
that all of the things out of reach
remain so every day
but to him I would say
Dude, it’s just a fucking peach.
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:27 am
Nice, Paul! How about a little Auden?
The poet said, Stop all the clocks,
my love has been dashed on the rocks.
My sense of direction
is short of perfection,
and everything now sucks bollocks.
July 23rd, 2007 at 10:58 am
A challenge? Here’s Stephen Crane’s “In the Desert” for now.
I saw a creature squat in the sand.
He held his own heart in its hand.
Even though it was bitter,
he ate it, that critter!
But could supply keep up with demand?”
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:15 am
Okay George, here’s my answer to your Auden challenge.
“Musee des Beaux Arts” by W.H. Auden
The Old Masters knew something of pain.
They thought it was common and plain.
When Icarus fell
with a splash and a yell,
no one noticed, or cared, or complained.
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:23 am
Best. Idea. Ever.
George and Paul, hillarious.
How about a little Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror?
There once was a painter from Rome
Who did his self-portrait at home.
I used its perspective
To get introspective.
And now, I present this here tome.
July 23rd, 2007 at 11:36 am
Oh, it’s on, bitch:
There once was a man name Yeats,
who said, Lo! the world disintegrates!
Lord, we’re in for a ride
on that blood-dimmed tide
with a beast that can`t walk very straight.
July 23rd, 2007 at 12:33 pm
Okay, I am getting ready to take off for Toronto, but I urge you all to continue shirking your responsibilities and posting limericks based on poems. Here’s my last for a few days. Unless I find a free wireless connection somewheres…
The Day Lady Died
Frank ambled about on his lunch
and name-dropped his friends a whole bunch.
He rambled, and joked,
bought booze and some smokes,
then her death knocked him down like a punch.
July 23rd, 2007 at 1:42 pm
Shelley’s Death the Leveller:
Noted Death: “The best part of our State
Is its populist pressure on Fate.
Every one of you chumps
After taking your lumps
Will be equally tasty wormbait.”
July 23rd, 2007 at 2:04 pm
And here’s a run at Eliot, The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:
My friend Alfred and I took a wander
Through the half-empy streets, just to ponder
If, at teatime with biscuits,
One should break the meniscus
Of a buttoned-down life that feels squandered.
July 23rd, 2007 at 4:21 pm
A traveller in lands antique
dug in the sand for a week
when he came up for air
he was filled with despair—
“This writing’s Egyptian, not Greek!”
not exactly Ozymandias!
July 23rd, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Come on, people! I’m surprised more of you aren’t getting in on this. Surely you’re just plotting your debut?
Keats said his great Grecian Urn
was a symbol for beauty’s return,
but was this amphora
a great metaphor or
just a capably negative turn?
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:19 pm
There once was a Mariner old
who wanted his damn story told
so he fixed passersby
with his glittering eye
and bored them to death in the cold.
July 23rd, 2007 at 9:30 pm
Crying of Lot 49
There was a girl named Oedipa Maas
Whose ex was a bit of an ass
He played a trick with the mail
‘Twas a bit beyond the pale
but won a spot in every grad class
Yes, I’m sorry, the last line is a cop out.
July 24th, 2007 at 1:05 am
There once was a Khan of Xanadu
Whose pleasure-dome caused quite a to-do
It was awfully pretty
Which is why it’s a pity
I forgot the rest–what can you do?
July 24th, 2007 at 10:42 am
THIS IS JUST TO SAY
There once was a doctor named Williams
Who found his wife’s plums where she’d chilled ‘em.
He left her a note
So cute (so he hoped)
That she wouldn’t immediately kill him.
July 24th, 2007 at 1:01 pm
A little Lowell, maybe?
The Quakers who lived in Nantucket….
July 24th, 2007 at 2:16 pm
These are fantastic – especially your own, George. I’ve carried on the game, switching the genre from poems-as-limericks to songs-as-limericks, over on my site:
[See link above]
July 24th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
Images made him feel strengthy
and kept poems from being lengthy:
“faces in a crowd”
“on a wet black bough”
a sort of poetic fengshui.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
If I were a cinnamon peeler
and of your heart a right stealer
no washing of smell
could make my presence go well
if I with another girl were to feel her.
July 24th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
Here’s some Robert Lowell.
Skunk Hour
The last of Maine’s gentry are sunk,
and the new generation’s turned punk.
It leaves me so bored
I cruise around in my Ford,
but all that I find is a skunk.
July 24th, 2007 at 10:34 pm
I think I’m running out of steam here. I’ll try one more then cast them to the fates:
Virgil and Dante stroll
through Hell, though Heaven’s their goal
(Heavens to Murgatroyd
don’t forget Purgatroyd)
divine perhaps, but not droll.
This is what passes for funny these days? Oy.
July 25th, 2007 at 7:53 am
Paradise Lost?
God got his robes in a knot
when Eve didn’t do what she ought
so God kicked her and Adam out
and they wandered about
and did some Bible-ish rot.
July 25th, 2007 at 8:28 am
I CAN’T STOP!
This Be the Limerick
(after Philip Larkin)
They fuck you up, your parents do,
and though it’s not that good for you,
it’s just a fucked inheritance
they got, in turn, from their parents.
So don’t have kids, they’ll get fucked, too.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:27 am
The art that she’d mastered was “losing”,
though for some her irony’s confusing.
Look: she doesn’t miss her keys,
just her main squeeze—
you can tell by the ( ) that she’s using!
July 25th, 2007 at 11:24 am
At a fork in the road, fifty lira,
I thought I would take, que sera,
Until swift second thought
Left me sweaty and fraught,
Oh, what should I do Yogi Berra?
July 25th, 2007 at 11:36 am
There once was a man named Ulysses
Beside whom most others were sissies.
He tried to be bold
even when he was old
and needed a cart for his testes.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:36 am
…I’m mildly disturbed by the standard leader that has me “saying” Ulysses needed a cart for his testes.
July 25th, 2007 at 10:17 pm
I.
Young Beowulf, thirsty for mead,
Saw that Hrothgar and friends were in need.
And eschewing his sword
(Or his hunky word-hoard)
He made Grendel explosively bleed.
II.
Then Gren’s mother got somewhat annoyed,
And a high-ranking Dane she destroyed.
So the ‘Wulf, post-deep-breath,
Promptly drilled her to death
With a big-ass blade straight out of Freud.
III.
Years later, old B. hit the deck
When some dragon chomped down on his neck.
As he died, he cried “Crap!
“What the fuck is ‘mocap’?
“I’m being butchered by Robert Zemeck!”
July 26th, 2007 at 1:49 pm
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
went chortling through tulgey groves
“The Jabberwock’s dead!
Beamish off his head!”
So what? said the borogoves.
July 26th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Virgil took Dante from Florence
on a tour of all Hell’s abhorrence
It was not good to be dead!
Ugolino gnawed the Archbishop’s head!
Over flatterers shit ran in torrents!
July 27th, 2007 at 1:08 am
urk, That was supposed to read:
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
went chortling through tulgey groves
“The Jabberwock’s dead!
Beamish cut off his head!”
“So what?” said the borogoves.
July 27th, 2007 at 6:45 am
Let’s keep this rolling people……
I stood at the fork with my biro,
my chances for both roads a zero,
with a world-weary sigh
took the less travelled by,
and thought myself quite the damn hero.
July 27th, 2007 at 7:33 am
At night near the beach down in Dover
I got maudlin and sad looking over
the rough white capped seas
toward France and Greece
to the point of boring my lover.
[more Hecht's take on Arnold than Arnold...]
July 27th, 2007 at 8:35 am
Love this !Here are some more:
wcw:
There’s providence in the fall of a sparrow,
But our lives are so full and so narrow,
That I tug on your sleeve,
And ask you to perceive,
The zen of a wet red wheelbarrow.
Spencer(Amoretti 75):
When the sea erased what I had written—
Her name,with whom I was smitten—
She upraided my vanity,
But I vowed my sanity,
By all the anthologies in Britain.
Cohen:
Suzanne took me down to the river,
And you need not pretend to forgive her,
She did not criticize me,
She loved and baptized me,
And with love I continue to live her.
Frostbite:
Falling snow so held my attention,
That I flouted all social covention.
My resulting reflection,
And deep introspection,
Led to nifty poetic invention.
July 27th, 2007 at 8:39 am
I managed to come up with 3:
“THE RAVEN”
The raven he sat ‘bove my door
And he quoth with a squawk “nevermore”
And he quoth and he quoth
Till I let out an oath
And I kicked that damned crow on the floor
“DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT”
Don’t go gentle Dyl said and he’s right
Don’t give up and don’t follow the light
Go down kicking and screaming
With language that’s steaming
‘Cause you’re dead if you give up the fight
“UNDERWEAR”
I couldn’t sleep thinking ’bout shorts
Boxer briefs, thongs and most other sorts
clean and white or dung spotted
even bunched up and knotted
and of all of the bums they supports
July 27th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Brecht’s Bucherverbrennung:
As Nazis sat burning some books in a heap
an ‘edgy’ (read: faux-lit) author had to leap
when he noticed that they had all his books ignored
and so he stood up to those Nazis and roared
“What does it take to get censored, you creeps?”
July 31st, 2007 at 8:58 am
465
I heard a fly buzz from my cot
and knew that my birth this was not -
so I signed it away -
what I’d had in my day -
a king’s ransom I’d trade for a swot.
Come on, one more each.
July 31st, 2007 at 10:47 am
Larkin sat on a train and was grim
because no one was marrying him
no girls in loud dresses
would offer caresses
to someone so scornful and dim.
July 31st, 2007 at 11:48 pm
Shakespeare, Sonnet 18:
To a summer’s day thee I’d compare.
But your figure won’t always be fair.
Though you’ll age, die, and rot,
You’ll forever stay HOTT
Through my pent-up iambic hot air.
August 1st, 2007 at 12:43 am
The Tyger is bright with the fire
Malevolence tinged with desire
“Is the source of the flame
and meekness the same?”
So the poet is moved to enquire
August 1st, 2007 at 8:51 am
In green fields for his own name’s sake,
Was the poet lying to make
Such an issue in print
About lamb without mint
Or perhaps he was just being Blake?
August 12th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
Ok, One last more. . .
There’s my last duchess, looking quite pert,
She turned heads and I thought her a flirt,
So I silenced the bitch.
Now, my new love is rich,
And you can see she’s a nice bit of skirt.
August 18th, 2007 at 8:29 am
Don’t open that door—use the Service entrance:
I delivered my American chum,
To the Lac Lebarge crematorium.
But when I checked on the flame,
He arorse to exclaim,
“I’m avoiding the draft, don’t be glum!”