Marseillaise: France's national an-thum
Is a tune that all day you could hum
Though Le Pétomane's said
To have not used his head ...
For the sound came straight out of his back!
It often does appear
If you've drunk lots of beer
That what you see
Looks quite blur-ree
And when you walk you veer!
No zebras did board Noah's ark
Only horses, two white, and two dark
But for forty black nights
There were no bedroom lights
Which caused zebras galore to disbark!
Two colonels, between desert bases
Once ordered their men: "Stop—oasis!"...
Their wise entourage
Saw instead a mirage—
And then watched both splash sand on their faces!
A young emigrant, Paddington Bear,
From Peru reached West London by air.
There the Browns were all conned
By an author called Bond
Into giving him permanent care!
An extraterrestrial being—
No earthling—had noses for seeing
And smelled with an ear
But used eyeballs to hear
What folks screamed up his nostrils while fleeing!
When you're bulging with flesh on the bone
And too heavy by more than a stone,
Your unshapely dad bod
And a proud-father pod-
Cast are made for each other to own!
Missy Horn's little baby was born
Neath an oak tree one fine summer morn,
When she said, "Wise oak tree
Plant a babe's name on me"—
And what fell was a baby "Ake Horn!"
There was once an explorer called Burke,
Whose lamp died in the Outback's night murk.
So he said to his band:
"Men, all raise your right hand" ...
Light returned—many hands make light work!
Twenty thousand leagues under the C
Known as middle—as deep as can be—
Paint Your Wagon's best bar
Song, called Wanderin' Star,
Was intoned by a Marvin called Lee!
An eight-nostrilled man in Cancun
Blows his nose-organ nicely in tune
Till the ragweeds first bloom
When he suffers from rheum
So he plays a mouth-organ in June!
An Englishman, name of Carruthers,
Would often say, "Had I my druthers" ...
But, given his way,
He would choose to delay—
He just rather'd the druthers of others!
Said the Hare to the Tortoise, "Dear chap,
I can catch you with ease, so I'll nap" ...
Round a bend, Tortoise crept
While the Hare overslept—
And then lost, 'cos he can't read a map!
An eagle whose wings had been clipped
From the clippings made quills, which he dipped
In indelible ink
To write BIRD CLIPPERS STINK
On the door of the bird clippers' crypt!
Were a brain salesman's prices confused? ...
"Einstein's: 25 cents," he enthused
"For this pol's: twenty grand" ...
No, those prices were planned—
The politico's hadn't been used!
An Austrian boa constrictor—
A lover of Mozart, ein dichter—
Unwound after killing
His victims by chilling
To music on RCA Victor!
Once a chemist I knew, Molly Cule
Taught atomic collisions in school
Bouncing hard colored balls
Off rectangular walls ...
Now she's tripled her pay, playing pool!
What's a godwit? The bird I define
Has evolved with a wader's design:
Two long legs, a long bill—
But it sounds to me still
Like a comic whose jokes are divine!
Murphy's Limerick Law I define:
You've decided your limerick's divine ...
Since it can't be improved
To your website it's moved—
Then you think of a much better line!
When it's well below 0 degrees
On the Celsius scale and your trees
Drip with icicles, you
Can be sure what you view
Are the signs that attend a hard freeze!
When the temperature's 40 degrees
Below zero, conversion's a breeze
From the Fahrenheit scale
To the Celsius—they'll
Both show 40 degrees of hard freeze!
A cockroach who left a deposit
Had vanished straight into the closet,
But later emerged
And was instantly purged ...
Well, that was the same one, right? ... or was it?
A dysfunctional diarist called Depys
Didn't log deeds in years that were leaps ...
Thus three fourths of his acts
Became widely known facts—
While a fourth are still secrets he keeps!
Once two goatherds, who ever did dote
On each other, when wed, signed this note:
"To mix herds would be wrong" ...
Thus their love lasted long—
Because neither one got t'other's goat!
When Pythagoras suffered bad dreams
He saw roof beams collapse at the seams
And crash down on his proof
That the square of the roof
Is the sum of the squares of its beams!
Why are cheers in advance of a drink
Like a window where prisoners think?
'Cos the one comes to pass
As the clink of a glass
While the other is glass in the clink!
I saw roofers up fixing the eaves
At the bank, while a gardener raked leaves
And a plumber found fault
With the pipes near the vault ...
Oh, now wait—you don't say I saw thieves?
Convicted of endless end-stopping,
A poet now uses such whopping
Enjambments, each sentence
Embodies repentance—
With length that leaves eyes truly popping!
Technology's way of enhancing
Philosophy's means of advancing:
A lens to zoom in
On the head of a pin
To count how many angels are dancing!
A scandalous hermit called Esau
Would bounce every visitor he saw.
For Esau, this scandal
Was child's play to handle—
He lived all alone on a see-saw!
An intergalactic explorer
While sleeping, was such a loud snorer
Astronomers heard
Her and wrongly inferred
A new radio-wavelength aurora!
Despite HMS Pinafore's fame
Captain Corcoran's losing the game
Till his true rank is known
To be Buttercup's own
While his daughter's and Ralph's are the same!
A firenado—a vortex in fire,
Pirouettes spun in ballet attire
And a whirlpool at sea
Are examples, all three,
Of rotation that counts as a gyre!
If the last line's the same as the first,
Edward Lear thought, whenever he versed,
Then you needn't spend time
Finding three words that rhyme—
'Cos the last line's the same as the first!
I once knew a pig who could fly
(*)
From the abattoir back to his sty
He was such a sharp dasher
He never made rasher
Nor ever became a pork pie!
A clairvoyant in Kansas, See Far
Said, "I'll go for a spin in my car" ...
When, soon after, a twister
Descended, his sister
Said, "My—how prophetic you are!"
"Hey, waiter, my soup's got a fly in!
No—two, three, and fast multiplyin'!" ...
"Have salad instead,
Diner, flies will be dead—
Our lettuce contains malathion!"
Exotic means strikingly foreign,
Like rabbits who keep a chaste warren,
Or Scots in cold weather
Who cover their nether
Parts only with kilt and a sporran!
A goldfish whom circling frustrated
Had from a good school graduated,
With hopes of high rank
In an upscale fish tank—
For a bowl, he's just too educated!
Once a knight, called Sir Menper, did go
In a lake to save damsels in woe.
Then he lit a huge fire
That would dry their attire—
Horse is wet, Menper's pyre, ladies glow!
Voluptuous Lady Godiva
Rode nude down a Coventry drive. A
Harsh tax was made void—
But her protest destroyed
The voyeur Peeping Tom's conjunctiva!
A parrot called Alex the Great
Is renowned for the size of his pate
He knows different from same
And all colors by name
And is able to count up to eight!
Hemispherical domes meet the ground
In a circle that's perfectly round,
From whose centre a line
To the dome, by design,
Has the same length wherever it's found!
From the soles of my feet to the hair
On my head—which I swear is still there—
Is my height, though it's less
Than my passports profess,
Since I've shrunk from six decades of wear!
Once a marathon runner called Hart
Ate a big can of beans at the start
And for many a mile
Had the most relaxed style ...
Being powered along by his feet!
An explorer, so cool under heat
In a cannibal's pot, sang such sweet
Bedtime songs, his guard dozed ...
Till their roles were transposed—
One man's poise 'n' another man's meat!
A hegemon's lever and pulley
Wield power to dominate fully.
But use of the word
Dulls a truth I've inferred:
That a hegemon's really a bully!
A Florida boater called Hockney
Saw mermaids on River Ochlockonee ...
He didn't capsize—
But he's blind in both eyes
From their looks, and has permanent knock-knee!
Oh, Danny Boy, damn your installing!
The pipework you plumbed in my walling
Has burst and has drowned me ...
So, when you have found me,
You'll learn that the pipes weren't your calling!
Once a feller with logs in a jam
Cursed the beaver who caused it: "Hell, scram!
You dumb rodent," bawled he,
"You're obstructing my tree ..."
Yelled the beaver, "Do I give a dam?"
A logomachist said, feeling jerks
As he drove over potholes: "This irks
Me to great stupefaction—
The road's out of action ...
But signs still inform me ROAD WORKS!"
A palatial glass dome housed Queen Joan's
Royal chair, showing all its fine stones ...
Till a storm blew away
What she sat on—they say,
Folks in glass houses shouldn't stow thrones!
Once a pilot of choppers called Joe
Had a lawn that he hated to mow ...
Now he flattens his green
With his rotored machine
Just by hovering over it low!
Once a lisper, on tour in Khartoum
Asked the Hilton to find him a room
In his style—which, he said,
Meant the room should be red ...
Now a soon-to-be-mom calls him "Gwoom!"
This wee bonnie Irish young lass
(*)
Who'd read Einstein as well as Laplace
Used equations to prove
That when leprechauns move
They have no gravitational mass!
Once a chap with a headache, named Lee,
Took his car for a drive by the sea,
Which stopped pain in his brain.
Said his wife, "Please explain."
"I had Mot'rin and water," said he!
A Methodist preacher called Leslie
Discovered a phrase in John Wesley:
"The rock of the church" ...
Now through sermons he'll lurch
As his choirboys perform Elvis Presley!
To exude, or to ooze, is to let
Slowly out what's unpleasantly wet,
Be it unctuous charm,
Sweat from under an arm
Or the mould in a damp oubliette!
Limerick quality varies a lot
Some are clever, and others are not.
Some are hits, others miss.
Dull and boring, like this,
And the worst have no plot—not a jot!
A mathematician called Madder,
Whose snake scared his wife up a ladder,
Was asked by her, "Pray—
Can you take it away?"
He replied, "No, I can't ... it's an adder!"
Desdemona, a virtuous maid
Loved Othello, whom Iago betrayed
When his words of deceit
Made her look like a cheat—
She got strangled to death while she prayed!
While doing the Heimlich manoeuvre
In Boston, the squeezer, called Hoover,
Expelled food unswallowed
So hard, it was followed
By choking a yawn in Vancouver!
A practical joker, McCarty,
In life had been healthy and hearty ...
"I'm shocked," friends all said
At his wake, "that he's dead"—
Then he rose, and said "Thanks for the party!"
The best part is right in the middle
(*)
Whatever you do, what you did'll
Seem worse, fore and aft—
Which is why the dog laughed
'Twixt the dish and the cat with the fiddle!
"The best part is right in the middle,"
(*)
King Alfred said, dousing the griddle ...
"The bottoms and tops
Of my cakes are burnt flops
But the rest you can eat—well, a liddle!"
A mechanic, who misunderstood,
Used the dipstick to prop up the hood,
While he fixed an old wreck.
Then he did an oil check ...
Bang!—That headache has taught him real good!
A contemplative life is a monk's.
He's alone every night as he bunks,
But consoled by this thought:
He's at least not distraught
By performance-anxiety flunks!
"My love to you three," wrote Narcissus
"Dear husband of my very missus,
Dear sister's sole brother,
Dear son of my mother—
I lavish on all of you kisses!"
A mathematician called Newton
While under a tree that was fruitin'
Got hit by an apple—
Which forced him to grapple
With gravity needin' computin'!
What did Einstein, while driving one night
At a speed so much faster than light
In his mirror observe
That near caused him to swerve? ...
His very own headlights, on bright!
Sighed a fortified wine drinker, Norm,
While confined by a gale to his dorm:
"Since my old wine's run dry,
And it's not safe to buy,
I'll drink new—any port in a storm!"
The Guardian and the Observer
Supply Britain's liberal fervor
The Telegraph, Times
Echo old Tory chimes
And the Sun is the day's pin-up server!
An anonymous poet online
Was a couple, not out to malign
But who since College Trig
Hadn't rhymed with a sig
'Cos they cringed to hear "sign" or "cosign"!
Once a rooster, whom day shifts made scowl,
Yearned to stay up all night like an owl ...
Now he crows before bed
At a distant cliff head—
And the echo at dawn wakes his fowl!
In a movie called Wizard of Oz
Tin Man's joints and emotions are froz
Till they oil every part,
He discovers his heart ...
And the witch who is wicked, now was!
There's a question designed to perplex:
(*)
Why giraffes have such very long necks!
Is it mainly to see?
Or eat treetops for tea? ...
Or have more room in dating for pecks?
Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer
Were a nun and a captain one summer ...
Till kids' song inspired love,
Nazi push came to shove
And they marched to the refugee's drummer!
Mathematics: of sciences, queen
Electronics: technology's dean ...
Yet each bows in great awe
When it meets Murphy's Law—
Still the ruler of earthly routine!
Mathematics—of Sciences, Queen—
Could not add or subtract as a teen ...
So she grabbed with both arms
At Technology's charms
And begat the computing machine!
Once a nearsighted cleric, from Queens, (*)
Based his sermons on porn magazines,
Kept beyond focal length,
Where he read but a tenth
Of the words—he ad-libbed from the scenes!
Once a nearsighted cleric from Queens (*)
Lived off pardoning rich libertines,
Who feared scandal released
If absolved by a priest
Who could see through confessional screens!
Once a nearsighted cleric from Queens, (*)
Who would confiscate lewd magazines,
O'er which later he pored,
Felt a bolt from the Lord
Zap his specs. They are now smithereens!
Once a snail doffed its shell for a race
And wore paint as disguise in its place.
With no shell on its back,
It outdistanced the pack—
But got fined for not keeping snail's pace!
Will the letters of NEW DOOR re-meld
So precisely ONE WORD can be spelled?
Rearrange, NOW REDO ...
What—O, WONDER!—it's true
Neither borrowed NOR OWED, but upheld!
(My response to a colleague who sent the following email message: Can you
rearrange the letters in NEW DOOR to make one word?)
An unfortunate rooster called Rex
With two goose genes on chromosome X
Has to honk at first light ...
But don't laugh at his plight—
'Cos the other gene codes for goose pecks!
If in traffic I'm stuck, on the road,
I see guys lose their patience a load
But while they blow their stacks
I just calmly relax
And I think up another bad ode
Once a mathematician who said,
"Well, at Cambridge my prospects seem dead,"
Found a Guinness career—
Putting foam on a beer—
Was the way to be getting ahead!
A recaptured malfeasant called Sam
Told the judge his escape was no scam
'Cos he'd now reformed fully ...
The judge said, "Sounds woolly"—
Said Sam, "Well, I've been on the lam!"
Once an ass who liked sonnets, I saw
Go "hee-haw" in fourteens, without flaw
But another donkey
Liked the limerick, and he
Went "haw-haw," then "hee-hee," and then "haw"!
Watching April in Paris on screen
Don't you wonder if Putnam's so green
'Cos the scarecrow he was
In The Wizard of Oz
Left some straw where just brains should have been?
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea:
Science fiction from last century
In which author Jules Verne
Could so clearly discern
Submarines would one day come to be!
Twenty thousand leagues under the sea
On the Nautilus, prisoners three
Were Conseil and the prof
And Ned Land ... till hurled off
Nemo's sub by the maelstrom's debris
Twenty thousand leagues under the sea
Play their soccer games Sundays at three
To a chorus of "Ref! ...
Can't you hear? ... Are you deaf? ...
ARE THERE FISH UP YOUR EARS, REFEREE?"
A grammarian challenged: "What sense
Hath the future pluperfect past tense?
None at all, I declare!" ...
But I answered his dare:
Grandma's will had had orders for hence!"
Johnny Carson's most famous late show
Has Ed Ames do a tomahawk throw.
Though Ed's scalping, in fact,
Leaves the top skin intact,
When Ed aims, his foe's scalped—from below!
A nubile young Finn who went skiing
Raced boyfriends down hill ere agreeing
To any proposin' ...
Now dozens lie frozen—
While she's still an un-attached being!
A nubile young Finn who went skiing
Stark naked, has courts disagreeing
One judge is for jail ...
But another—a male—
Is for crime reconstruction, then seeing!
A jokester had only just started
His mule, when it broke loose and darted
Away out of sight
'Cos the rope wasn't tight ...
A mule from his funny's soon parted!
A philosopher, finding a stone,
Posed the question: How far was it thrown?
Though he couldn't decide,
He deduced it implied
He existed—and wasn't alone!
Once a mumbler, who wanted to stop
Dropping letters and such, booked an op
With, he thought, "a neurologist" ......
Alas, an urologist
Heard "litters"—and so he went chop!
If your light turns to red and you stop
You won't care who hides back of a shop
But if you race on through
Your next light may be blue
Flashing "Stop!" on the top of a cop!
A judge, whose extreme superstition
So distanced him from the logician,
In March, hiked each day,
Gave permissions in May
And in August showed stately condition!
Why were cops very quick to surprise
Hungry burglars who ate corn and fries? ...
'Cos wherever they'd been
They'd been heard and been seen—
Corn has ears, and potatoes have eyes!
A lecture on love by two swamis
So raptured two kissing gouramis
Whenever they pucker
They make such a sucker
Their fish tank's engulfed by tsunamis!
An illiterate cleric called Ted
Was mailed sermons that could have been read
Out by someone who reads.
But Ted couldn't read screeds—
He ad-libbed what he thought they'd have said!
Once an archer called William Tell
Aimed his bow at an apple so well
That he sliced it in two ...
Then his son a tree grew—
On his head, 'cos that's where the pips fell!
Some friends of a spendthrift, Teresa
Rechristened her Tower of Pisa
'Cos the lean on the wall
Of the tower is small
When compared to the lien on her Visa!
To procrastinate steals all your time
Caution those who believe it's a crime ...
Yet it's often agreed
That more hurry's less speed—
Not much reason, a whole lotta rhyme!
Enjoying a trip on "Titanic" (*)
If only 'twere more Puritanic
Might have lasted more hours—
After all, the Mayflower's
Famous voyage was transoceanic!
There's a nip in the air, love, tonight (*)
Fiddler crabs have evolved powered flight
Hear their violins screech
As they soar down our beach ...
And beware, 'cos they fly at butt height!
A tongue-twister tweaker termed Twoles
Served six seasick sheikhs saucy soles
Said the sixth seasick sheikh:
"Saucy sole is sure chic ...
But I choose to chew rolls, eschew shoals!"
What's a herblet? "Small herb" is no use
By itself, since you cannot deduce
What a herb is—you can't
Know a herb is a plant
Used as food to induce gastric juice!
What's the difference—one guy's volunteered
To peel onions, the other's been sheared
Of his locks on the side? ...
One's become teary-eyed
And the other's become tidy-eared!
There once was a fly on a wall
Whom brave Humpty Dumpty saw fall
Down to save her, he leapt ...
But that leap was inept
'Cos he won't reassemble at all!
I often see signs for MEN WORKING
Surrounded by managers shirking
While one lonely guy
Must his labor apply ...
Wouldn't MAN WORKING signs be less irking?
Bon Noel: en anglais: Happy Yule
C'est magnifique: en anglais: Real cool
Honi soit, mal y pense:
Evil thoughts, evil wants ...
So few gains, from my French pains in school!
While swimming across the Zambezi
Two crocs played a game of parcheesi
By moving cig butts
Round their teeth to their guts ...
But the winner felt terribly queasy!
While swimming across the Zambezi
A croc met St. Frank of Assisi
Said Frank, "From my hand
You may eat—understand?" ...
Now he wishes he spoke Crocodisi!
Once a regular gnu at the zoo
For six days could push no roughage through,
While next day the zoo's chief
Shared its sense of relief
When it had its hebdomadal poo!