This is a test to see how well you are paying attention. This text is a series of limericks. At the end of the list of limericks, there will be a question. The question will be about one of the limericks. Please answer the question as concisely as possible. 



Fin de siècle, the end of the nine-
teenth century. It was divine
With its literary parts
And the decorative arts:
Art Nouveau had a lovely design.

What's an Amsterdam folk-dance? A clog kick.
What's a flying pig launched by? A hog kick.
And a lad's lower limbs,
As they move while he swims
Doing breaststroke, describe this: a frog kick.

You're the getaway driver, my son—
An accomplice who helped the perp run.
You committed a crime
And will do the same time
As your friend here who wielded the gun.

Benton Harbor, alas, is a fine
Illustration of urban decline.
Lots of jobs moved away,
And few folks chose to stay,
Mainly under the poverty line.

Ambrosia, the food of Greek gods!
Don't complain how it tastes, or the odds
Are that Zeus will get mad,
And for you, 'twould be bad,
If you haven't installed lightning rods.

I'll drop you at Julie's at nine.
She forgives you. Have fun, you'll be fine.
Relax, have your kicks.
I'll collect you at six.
Don't be late, 'cause tonight I've got mine.

Agribusinessman—he'll make a pile!
And his job is secure for a while
(What with harvest equipment,
The processing, shipment...)
'Cause food never goes out of style.

"A cheerful, agreeable mood,
That's good temper," asserted the dude,
"And good-humoured I am
When I have a large dram,
And my girlfriend ends up in the nude."

They hydrogenate oil in a vat,
Making shortening—Crisco's like that.
Solid grease of that sort
Keeps the gluten strands short.
You bake crumblier bread, adding fat.

The collect is one way we pray;
It is brief, yet has formal array.
Prithee, still you're perplexed?
Well, it follows a text
That will vary, forsooth, with the day.

In the cold frozen north, so they say,
Is the land where the caribou play.
These large, antlered deer
Every Christmas appear—
They're the reindeer that pull Santa's sleigh.

For me, content holds marginal sway;
I say formalism carries the day.
It's the customs, the rules,
All procedural tools,
That a formalist needs to convey.

I'm alone in my home all this week
And, upstairs in my bed, hear a squeak;
I'm alert to each sound
Of the floorboards—and round
About midnight I freak at a creak.

Budgie-smuggling, he shows off his pecs.
And for Lent he says, "I'll give up sex."
Abbott, T.,  look at me:
Have a nice cup of tea
And a lie-down (and, yes, take a Bex).

A migrating bird told her mother,
"I want to fly north like my brother!"
So her mum asked the shop
If the airline would swap
Her own Arctic return for another.

Curly grass is a very small fern—
It's uncommon, which causes concern.
With spiralling fronds,
It grows close to ponds;
It's slender and tufty in turn.

"This module," said astronaut Jo,
"Will provide a precise current flow,
But a wire's  exposed,
So the circuit's not closed.
I don't think that all systems are go."

The lizard that's called callisaurus,
In the desert would never ignore us.
He would flee and he might
Show his tail, black and white.
He'd amuse and delight—never bore us.

Though a crabber, Joe doesn't catch crabs.
He's a grouch and throws mean verbal jabs.
A complainer, a grouse,
He'd be out of my house
If he didn't have such perfect abs.

At OEDILF, that fun limerick site,
I write poetry all through the night.
Then when morning comes 'round—
Can you guess what I've found?
I want bedtime, but now it is light!

"When you call youself 'gay'," said my pa,
"With that fib you won't get very far."
Daddy dealt in denial.
"You will dance down the aisle
With a nice Jewish girl. Cha-cha-cha!"

Amphitheatral was the design
Of the hall from its floor to tier nine.
It was easy to hear
Scott and Sandra that year:
Mock-trial arguments buffed to a shine.

From a lender I borrowed a grand
In a loan I must pay on demand.
If it's called, I'll be hauled
Into court and forestalled
From repainting my hamburger stand.

The abettor was someone who stood
Looking out for his friend from the 'hood.
For assisting a crime,
He's today doing time.
Some Samaritans aren't so Good.

Cure of souls — sacral role of the curate.
KPIs: Sunday bums-on-seats (pew rate);
Ounces (wine) they consumed;
Number (altar boys) groomed;
Baptised converts (ex-heathen-and-Jew rate).

I've a tree in my yard in a plight;
All its leaves are diseased — it's a sight.
And the skin of that tree
Peels to such a degree
That its bark is much worse than its blight.

Not normally worn by a farmer,
This garment's a save-me-from-harmer.
It is heavily padded,
And mail pads are added—
The arming coat's worn under armor.

An arbitrative person was needed
To deal with debates, which proceeded
To give me great stress.
No more will I mess
In disputes where I once interceded.

The testing, I know, makes you squirrelly;
The process (at best) leaves you surly.
Grit your teeth. Be tenacious.
It is most efficacious:
Colon cancer's detectable early.

Silver ants' armored skin reflects sun,
But still they can spend only one
Frantic time span of ten
Minutes outside their den
To find food; any longer, they're "done."

Cyclotomy (study of 1)
For us math geeks provides lots of fun,
As 1's roots are complex,
And in many respects
The research on them still is not done.

The abater on waters pours unction
Quelling trouble (as that is his function),
Dispensing serenity,
Providing amenity,
Without favour or fear or compunction.

These two adjectives, back in the day,
Both meant "sociable—ready to play,
To hang out, to hang loose."
They're no longer in use,
While companionable? That's still okay.

Doubtless good folks do good; that is true.
Of course, bad folks do bad; that's true too.
But it makes me so sad,
That for good to do bad
Takes religion — and, Bishop, that's you.

At the sight of my hawk soaring higher,
Poor pigeons take fright, and expire.
My prize falcon-gentil
Is unsentimental,
Despite what they call her — a "cryer".

I just lost a friend, a fine dancer.
Her disease, the M.D.s couldn't answer.
The chemo she tried,
But still, sadly, she died.
Now I wish for more drugs anticancer.

With afterthoughts filling your head,
You won't be successful in bed
When longing for sleep.
Your urge may be deep,
But frustration's the winner instead.

An Italian went to New York,
Where he lived upon nothing but pork.
For home he was pining:
With Roman cross-tining,
Spaghetti don't slip off your fork.

If you don't have big money to blow,
Then a bowl cut could save you some dough.
Place a bowl on your head,
Cut what shows—enough said.
Love The Stooges? You're looking like Moe.

A medieval professor, at dawn,
Saw a couple of bears on his lawn.
Knowing nothing of bears,
All alone or in pairs,
He cried, "Harken, ye varlets, begone!"

Shall I ever forget him? I shan't!
My dear pet, named Immanuel Kant,
Was my true, one and only
Best friend. Now I'm lonely.
I still feel the loss of my ant.

In The Times, I was reading "John Glenn
Bhaarkaah pop etaoin shrdlu," and then,
While rereading the line,
I was forced to opine,
"Some fool proofreader blew it again."

Though your dog is a cute piece of fluff,
I'll be honest. I've had quite enough
Of his scratching and clawing
And constant begnawing—
He's chewing up all of my stuff!

Sure, I called you a butt-head; it's true.
It's genetic, so what can you do?
Try to sprout horns forever:
A futile endeavor…
But you'll shine in my famous veal stew.

To revive an old joke, it is best
If in limerick form it's expressed:
What did L.A. cop Kelly
Exclaim to his belly?
"Hands up! You are under a vest".

A man on a holiday bender
Dissolutely mixed booze in a blender,
And created a beast
Of unguessable yeast,
Unknown proof and ambiguous gender.

"What's an alkane?" I'm asked by my son.
"It's a paraffin." Well, that was fun.
But I've still got to write
Three more lines now in spite
Of the fact that I'm already done.

Once they'd speak of a shrew, I am told,
In the wonderfully quaint days of old,
As a hag or old bag;
When a woman would nag:
"She's a chidester; the woman's a scold."

The dollar's a currency unit.
Ascetics and hermits impugn it,
But others embrace it.
We love it, let's face it.
Let roses and daisies festoon it!

A consortium of ursine-arms  vendors
Struck gold when they sold ClawExtenders,
Thus fulfilling the prayers
(And the right to arm bears)
Of good Second Amendment defenders.

A fine artwork he ventured to steal.
Brought a copy, the theft to conceal.
But he made a mistake
By removing the fake,
When thinking the false one was real.

You're explaining your problem to me.
I say "Uh-uh", "OK" and "I see"
To confirm that I've heard
What you've said, every word—
Backchannelling to a degree.

Our counters? They must be redone.
Pro-and-con talk today has begun.
I prefer granite rock;
He insists "Butcher block!"
Counter-arguments: yeah, loads of fun.

An evaluator friend who's a souse
Came to set a fair price for my house.
His work done, I said, "Pal, you
Assigned a low value —
I estimate you are a louse."

Order dumplings the next time you eat
Chinese food; you will find them a treat,
Though the portions are small.
To the waiter you'll call:
"Bring more dim sum! The meal's incomplete!"

Today's image of "pedophile priest"
Fits Horatio Alger, deceased.
What a shock! I feel sad
For his victims, yet glad
That we're rid of this horrible beast.

I've been driven to phone twice a week re
My pleadings. Though all that I seek re
My wife is divorce,
She still wants me (of course).
I'm just praying the court will grant decree.

Through the whole of the freshman semester,
Lester pestered my best buddy Hester.
Then she called him a heel,
Which hurt Les a great deal,
And the wound wouldn't heal—only fester.

Speaking Friday, with shame undisguised,
"I'm a loser, disparaged, despised,
And disdained. I can't fight.
I won't go out tonight."
"Oh, don't beat yourself up," friends advised.

"About-ship, lad!" the captain kept crying.
"Aye, aye skipper!" his mate kept replying.
Till the tar at the tiller
Fell iller and iller—
So seasick he feared he was dying.

At first, it just burned when I peed,
But now I am feeling the need
To grip onto my side.
Pain's so bad I just cried!
Please, cystopyelitis:  Recede!

Since a good balanced diet is grand,
I'm relieved that you're taking a stand,
But I don't trust your view
That it's balanced when you
Clutch a Danish in each chubby hand.

In the '20s, a flapper named Roxy
Went dancing, made up to look foxy.
"If I Charleston all night,
Then some gentleman might
Find attractive a girl with such moxie."

D.A. Tom sent the man to the chair
And watched as they strapped him in there.
He was jolted repeatedly
As Tom noted conceitedly,
"I've brought justice with charges to spare."

Our African tour guide was cheeky—
Not creaky with age, and not geeky.
Though he came from St. Paul,
He could charm one and all,
Looking chic in his patterned dashiki.

Doctor Dee's dark Angelical Stone,
Where he scried to divine for the throne,
Was a speculum bright,
Through which angelkind might
Have been glimpsed, as he sought the unknown.

At present, he's still feeling fine,
But should he have any more wine,
His vision will blur
And his speech start to slur,
And his balance abruptly decline!

Could a horseman who's dreadful' unnerving
Stay on course, straight ahead, and unswerving,
If he hadn't a head,
But wore pumpkins instead
(Like that story by Washington Irving)?

Currant bushes bear fruit, black or red,
Or white, or just flowers instead.
They're a species of Ribes
Attractive to my bees,
Which harvest their pollen for bread.

After years of sustained perseverance,
I've finally been granted the clearance
To launch my new rocket.
It's novel; don't knock it,
And please—I want no interference!

Now, a feel's not the same as a look,
And a grope (let's be honest) I took.
Who could tell I'd provoke
That response to my joke?
Man, that gal has a wicked left hook!

Jacob's daughter by Leah was Dinah.
To Shechem, no girl could be finer,
So they coupled.  Solution:
Her clan's retribution—
Her brothers smashed Shechem like china.

His day-to-day plan thus progressed:
"I'll build it in six, then I rest
On the seventh," He sayeth.
But what of the eigh-eth?
"I don't think ahead," God confessed.

It's enalapril, dear, you must take it.
Your BP is sky high; please don't fake it.
I found quite a stash
Of these pills in the trash!
Keep that up, and you surely won't make it.

Yes, today is my fortune-filled day! You
So kindly, benevolently, say you
Will lend me a hand,
Plus a few thousand grand.
Tell me, how can I ever repay you?

Behold our Thanksgiving Day fare!
Such a foison of dishes we'll share—
Far too many to list,
But you guys get the gist.
Now let's eat! Hurry up with that prayer!

Foreign policy kept Jim up nights;
No one else saw the world by his lights.
Old diplomacy hands
Heeded saner demands.
And Jim's fans readjusted their sights.

When pernicious anemia's crud
(Huge erythrocytes) clutters the blood,
Cobalt vitamin shots
Restore oxygen (lots!)
And nip nerve decay right in the bud.

Our long friendship is now at an end;
Your stinginess cost you a friend —
No more palship, rapport.
The main reason?   You swore
Not to tender a friend a wee lend.

Vinnie needs telling off, there's no doubt,
But you're hiding downstairs working out.
Punching bag in your basement?
We call it displacement.
Confront him? No way — he's got clout.

Swarming angels so strangely appear,
Always yelling ideas in my ear.
I'm in hell—that's enough!
Now they're telling me stuff
That a fellow so rough shouldn't hear.

The customhouse chap placed his cocket
On Shipmaster Henry's load docket.
The duty's been paid
Or the bribe has been laid
In that shady chap's graft-laden pocket.

I run the one gin mill in town.
Got some sorrows you're hoping to drown,
Or just want a light meal,
And don't mind the gruff feel
Of this ramshackle place?  Come on down.

I may have a lopsided grin
In a face that's too fat or too thin
With a nose that's off-square—
But I wear facial hair:
With a beard I design my own chin.

There's a sudden attack using force
In a war, and the world changes course.
We defeated Japan
In a grand coup de main:
With resolve and, for many, remorse.

Once on Superman, hunky George Reeves
(That was George's show, mind you, not Steve's)
Found a clue and said, "This
Is adenophyllous, Miss.
You can see it has glands on its leaves."

In the ballpark can mean you're inside
A place where the home team shows pride
As a ball game is played,
Or it could mean you've stayed
Well within proper range—glad you tried?

My horse's impatience is growing;
In a moment her speed she'll be showing.
This starting gate wait
Is the part we both hate —
We both chomp at the bit to get going.

Aidoneus, a.k.a. Hades,
I'm sure was a hit with the ladies.
This underworld god
Would today pack a rod
And be seen in a stolen Mercedes.

"Yes, my pet is a lynx," explained Merrill.
"Though he may look quite tame, he's still feral.
So be careful; he might
Either scratch you or bite.
Here's my warning: pet Rex at your peril."

"It's felicitous you should wear white,"
The Grim Reaper declared, one dark night,
"For your suit is your shroud."
The man, briefly, looked proud,
Just before he dropped dead of pure fright.

That's it! I am black out with you!
I'll not stand for this venom you spew!
You are coarse, crude and loud—
And of this you are proud??
I'm not kidding. It's over. We're through.

If you buy from some guy you don't know,
Here's advice: Please think twice; take it slow.
"Let the buyer beware"
Suggests caution and care.
Act in haste, you risk wasting your dough.

This competitive bidding is fun!
I love auctions. What's that? Gosh, I've won!
And I'm now the proud owner
Of—three gross of toner?
I cannot believe what I've done!

It's invented, a legend, a fable:
Noah's flood and the Tower of Babel.
For the Bible that you
Claim is word-for-word true,
I'd say myth is a much better label.

Seventh round. "Goodbye, sucker!" he said,
But his knockout intention I'd read.
So I focused on sucking
My gumshield and ducking
His punch, which went over my head.

My friend Jim said, "Here's something to see!
Watch this GIF, and I'm sure you'll agree!"
But that led to a tiff
Over whether a GIF
Is pronounced with a soft or hard G.

"What's your job?" Sarah wrote the new guy,
But "Fg Off" was his texted reply.
"Well, how rude!" Sarah stewed.
I explained that the dude
Was an officer sent here to fly.

A ward of the state as a tot,
Then a government pension he got.
When his last breath he draws,
Alimentary laws
Will provide for his burial plot.

Annabella, the belle of the ball,
Getting careless, let burgundy fall
Down the front of her dress,
Which created a mess
And accounts for her squeal and her squall.

Need your vehicle cleaned in a jiffy?
I'm the one who makes grungy look spiffy —
For your car, boat or trailer,
A top-notch detailer.
Missed a spot? ...There's no need to get sniffy.

These traits that we deem evolutional
Our faculty finds attributional
(After careful inspection)
To nature's selection.
The concept's, for us, institutional.

Verses apothegmatical, with
A limerick's concision and pith:
Witty wisdom and more
In lines one two three four,
Then instruction arrives in the fifth.

The cyclops's eye's black or red,
Near the top of its gray or green head.
From its mouth to its furca
It's tiny — say, circa
Ten to the inch. It's widespread.

You look new. Let me show you our school.
Here's the gym, there's the labs, that's the pool.
Here's a room full of geeks
Of which no-one else speaks:
It's the chess club, and very uncool.

Your sitcom's a wordy rendition.
Every cast member speaks of his mission.
There's not enough fun
In episode one —
Your script has too much exposition.

"Murder hornets" from Asia? What's next?!
They leave beekeepers greatly perplexed.
Could it be the Chinese
Are the ones behind these,
As my paranoid buddy suspects?

"The roof ought to cause a sensation,"
Said Rufus, in anticipation
Of 1097.
"They'll think they're in heaven
With Westminster Hall's contignation."

A convent's where women may dwell
In a single bare room, called a cell.
After working all day
They, most probably, pray
That they'll go on to heaven, not hell.

In Trinidad, where I will buy land,
Calypsonians live on the island.
When I finally move there,
My life will improve there;
I love how they sing in the high land.

Most equivocatory speech he's made yet:
He said nothing he'll live to regret.
"Failing snags, we'll proceed,
If all act as agreed…
That's unless there's a credible threat."

The risk to your health is appalling:
In winter, your horse could be falling.
Some calks may suffice
If there's slippery ice,
But they won't help his frogs when they're balling.

One more Saturday night at the hop,
We kept truckin' to U.S. blues bop.
Though the Grateful Dead's gone,
Casey Jones still lives on,
And for Deadheads, the music won't stop.

So, botanical nomenclature tames
All those common old regional names.
Carl Linnaeus was wise
When he moved to revise
To binomials — such were his aims.

Stack all of the cars in the nation
On high at a single location.
When we measure, oblique,
From horizon to peak,
That's an angle of huge elevation!

Prince Albert astonished his kin
By attaching a ring through his skin,
Shouting, "Albert the Great
Can suspend his own weight,
With a factor of safety built in!"

A bagger's a string of strikes—so
A five-bagger's five in a row.
In a 300 game
There's a strike every frame,
So a twelve-bagger's what you must throw.

My drinking's a serious ailment;
I drive trains. Drunk, I caused a derailment.
When we sailed off the rail
Thanks to ale (epic fail!)
I turned pale, because that "Off to jail!" meant.

You can drydock your boat or your barge
And repair all their leaks, small or large.
In the dry dock, they'll scrub
All the rust off your tub—
Ask for Larry, the guy who's in charge.

It's the part that is central or main
Of a thing to which others pertain.
And the parts that attach
Or sit round it? No match.
It's the body that's destined to reign.

My learning is slow; I forget.
Tell me how to insert this diskette
With directions for using
Computers. Confusing—
But I'll figure these gadgets out yet!

We can grasp something's nature and worth.
For example, we value the earth
For the things it supplies
And appreciate—prize—
Even more so our children at birth.

Exhibitioner Bob, in the square,
Sets his table, an animal fair.
He displays, live or dead,
Creatures found round his shed.
Don't get bitten, since Bob doesn't care.

You were kind and polite, so it seemed,
Then you cursed me, disgraced me and screamed.
Now I'm utterly galled —
I'm provoked, irked, appalled!
So don't think that you're getting redeemed.

Aloo gobi: an Indian curry
With a taste you should savour; don't hurry.
Made with cauliflower, spices
And taters. With rice is
Making taste buds go all of a flurry.

A penitent blackshirt from Kiel
Said, "The uniforms held great appeal,
So I joined the SS,
But now sadly confess
That their deeds made humanity reel."

There are many renowned for their kenning,
Their wisdom, wit, judgment and penning;
But the first among peers
For one hundred (Yes!) years,
Beyond reasonable doubt, was Lord Denning.

Keeping score? Seems your government's spent
Even more making every last cent
Than a penny apiece.
Saves a mint if they cease—
Which the zinc lobby seeks to prevent.

See that larva grab tight on the bract?
On its legs are crochets. What an act!
As the creature goes inching,
Releasing and clinching,
Those hooks will extend and retract.

At Asculum, Pyrrhus prevailed.
His elephants' charges curtailed
Roman legions, much touted,
Who were thoroughly routed,
But the cost of the win was bewailed.

My rickety clickety clock
Has stopped ticking—it's sticking—take stock:
By the sound of the squeals
There are bats in the wheels,
A wickedly flickery flock.

As he romps through that Boston hall, Faneuil,
My Cavalier King Charles spaniel,
Stays cute as a bug,
With that sweet-looking mug,
Though he gobbles his food — every granule!

Welcome all, to the AFF course.
You will fall from a plane, not a horse,
With instructors who know
How to help if you're low,
And your margins of safety enforce.

What you hear when a pipe starts to blow,
Or a string first responds to the bow,
Is what's known as a chiff,
But I'm not certain if
That's legit — I just go with the flow.

Dr. Awkward's a maladroit doc
With the physical grace of a rock,
But what brings her acclaim?
Her reversible name—
Back and forth, it's the same. That's no crock!

Tell me, what will it take to dissuade
You from joining this mad escapade?
Oh, I wish you'd concur
But I've yet to deter
You despite the attempts that I've made.

All our Tommies are awfully bright
So the RSM won't shout "Eyes right".
For the whole brave brigade
When they're out on parade,
Dextroduction's the word. What a sight!

See the men at the kerb, where they get
A close view of the leggy brunette,
Marching smartly. How grand!
She is leading the band,
Baton-twirling: the drum majorette.

"This cosaque that I bought was a gyp!
When I pulled it, it only went riiiiiiiiip!"
"What you've got's a casaque,
So no money back, Jack.
It's a blouse that's loose fitting, you dip!"

While the most evil vampire in town
Stalks the night chomping necks in his gown,
We know each bloody gulp
Becomes albumose pulp
As his old acid tum breaks it down.

An auto crash brought to an end
The career of our car-stealing "friend".
At high speed without fear,
He omitted to steer
Round a left-handed right-angled bend.

The Bunyadi, a restaurant, debuted
With a menu of natural food.
There all cell phones are banned,
It's all candle-lit, and
They allow you to eat in the nude.

Oh professor, don't think me unruly;
I've a question.  I'm asking it coolly.
When a spiral takes form
In a flower or storm,
Why's it named for that fellow, Bernoulli?

That rumor's not easy to credit,
So consider the source where you read it.
We can safely deep-six it
Unless—ipse dixit—
The subject, himself, clearly said it.

To the very last row my queen sped,
And then, "Checkmate!" I happily said.
It's a term that once was
Pronounced Shah mat because
It is Persian and means "The king's dead."

Your favour to hand, of 6th ult.,
And oblige, as per same, pro result,
We assure best attention
In receipt of which mention,
This old business letter's occult.

Poor Ruth Ellis, aged just 28,
Went to meet every mortal's sad fate.
This blonde model had got
Only one perfect shot,
And support she received far too late.

It's a small piece of luggage—a case
For cosmetics you put on your face.
Take a break from the rush,
Grab your lipstick and blush,
Pretty up, and get back in the race.

"Gesticulation", Marceau told his school,
"Is a mime's indispensable tool.
Show emotion with motion.
Locomotion's the notion.
Use your limbs to express! That's the rule."

You reckon it aggravates? Wait—
What you mean there is irritate, mate.
Pay heed, girls and boys:
Irritation annoys,
While to aggravate worsens that state.

Chirographical issues delay
Us from treatment.  Our docs have a way
To make pharmacists shrug,
'Cause the scrip for the drug
Is illegible — what does that say?

Was Ashpenaz not Herculean?
His mentoring merits a paean:
Mishael, Hananiah,
Daniel, Azariah—
He taught these Judaeans Chaldean.

One bereavement, close after another —
Now I care for my elderly mother.
It's too much to deal with;
I've naught left to feel with,
So, numbly, I whisper, "Oh, brother!"

In my next film, The Anapest Killing,
I'm the star, and as such I'm unwilling
To see my name below
Any others, and so
In the credits I insist on top billing.

The beauty she hungered to keep
Was Endymion, herder of sheep.
Such a beautiful thing,
For Selene, was king,
So she kept him forever — asleep.

He would travel for many a mile
To view girls wearing only a smile.
His reward for his trip
Was to see women strip.
He's a rabid ecdysiophile.

A congenital problem to rue:
No vagina leaves life all askew.
But a female physician
Can't fix the condition;
It's Amann's operation to do.

The cook smiled as he stirred his creations;
Cream and spices enriched taste sensations.
And his flavoursome soups,
Dried in packs for the troops,
Enhanced rations through war's deprivations.

For the shows in the old Colosseum,
They used lions; the Christians would flee 'em.
Ref the martyrs, I vow,
Like the famed "Purple Cow,"
I would much rather see 'em than be 'em.

When you're blue, I can see why you're blue.
When you're happy, I understand too.
Whether joyful or sad,
On your good days or bad,
I have empathy, feeling for you.

I bought it because of its looks—
A bookcase with shelves hung on hooks.
It was full in a week.
Want to see? Take a peek!
You'll find everything in it but books.

A microwave oven is not
What you need if you want to stay hot.
Much too quickly you're done
With your "day in the sun."
Try the steadier, slower Crock-Pot.

Half-conscious, asleep on the lawn,
I'm angry and drunk and withdrawn,
And wond'ring where Jane is—
You can't know what pain is
'Til after your lover has gone.

I must settle my cooperage bill;
It's outrageous, but pay it I will.
The cooperage due
Is a thousand or two,
But I'm needing clean casks for my still.

Desert island?  If that's where I'd landed,
I'm sure I would still be there, stranded.
My boat-building skill
Is essentially nil;
I'm clumsy, inept; I'm cack-handed.

A novice French cook who was flustered
In making his very first custard
Used a hot bain-marie,
A device from Paris,
So his custard can now cut the mustard.

Da Dada, da Dada, da Dada.
Da Dada, da Dada, da Dada.
Yeah yahya, yeah yahya.
Yeah yahya, yeah yahya.
Da Dada, da Dada, da Dada.

With a ducktail, I'm here to report,
Just the hair on your cheeks is kept short.
As beards go, in the main,
It's remarkably plain,
A familiar and commonplace sort.

As phirst aid, Dame Sophronia Phelps
Prefers coal oil and various kelps.
Using coal oil in lamps
Aids by saving on amps—
Phrugal Phreddie avers that it helps.

Does a foot locker lock up your feet
So you can't walk around in the street?
No, it's just a small trunk
To contain all your junk
By your bed, within reach and discreet.

"Fall out!" — leave the barracks and then,
In formation with other like men
And women, we'll stand
Till we hear this command:
"Fall out!" (Hit the barracks again.)

Addictive—that's my personality.
My obsession defies rationality:
Not gambling or booze,
But the fact that I choose
To pursue mere 5-line immortality.

The truth of it started to seize us:
We knew that the blizzard would freeze us.
Captain Scott scrawled his notes.
It was too much for Oates—
Out of him, the thought scared the bejesus.

Anaclitic describes Virge and me.
His programming skills are the key
To our website's success,
I am quick to confess.
Without him, just where would we be?

Daisy fleabane's resistant to drought
And will grow where the grass has dried out.
Though once thought to repel
Pesky fleas with its smell,
Scratch that theory; it's riddled with doubt.

This assay and assayer five-liner
Uses try as the former's definer.
What assayers are for?
Well, they analyze ore.
You can ask any old forty-niner.

In an act that you'd think would take guts,
We've had arrows shot into our butts.
It's for profit we do it.
No sweat—nothing to it!
And my wife and I? No, we're not nuts!

I think I must cover my tracks,
For my creditors never relax.
I suggest an investor
Won't pester unless to
Sequester the whole ball of wax.

With his life-giving bullets all firing,
He's showing no sign yet of tiring.
His offspring keep mounting —
200 and counting!
He sure is the daddy of siring.

Why do ads on TV often say
We need help to make smells go away?
"You're not safe, gals, unless
You use our FDS"
(Meaning "feminine deodorant spray").

His poems were pointed and terse.
"Life in prison," he wrote, "can't be worse.
As I sit all alone
With no friends and no phone,
I'm aware of the need for con verse."

At home on the range and astraddle,
A cowman's a rancher with cattle.
He lopes on his pony,
Steers steers while alone: he
Loves life on his own in the saddle.

I awoke with a pain in my back.
Tried to rise but fell back in the sack.
"It will pass!" was my cry.
But the doctor said my
Dorsolumbar spine's all out of whack.

At a bar called "Kentucky's Last Race",
A brown thoroughbred entered the place.
 So the barkeep supplied
 Four cold beers, and then sighed,
"Not to nag, Ed, but why the long face?"

Reproduce without sex (that's monogony),
Or with ova and sperm (gametogony);
If the offspring you raise
Has an embryo phase,
Call the start of its life embryogony.

She looks forward, avoiding defeatism,
And her speeches, replete with concretism,
Always mean what they say.
There's no abstract in play
As she shuns all pretense and elitism.

Can you help find my lost application?
It belongs in my mind's motivation,
Near my gumption and thrust,
Labelled "do what you must",
Resting tight on my, er, concentration.

Cries Omphale, "Go clean off the table!
I know good and well that you're able!"
One look at the dishes
And Hercules wishes
He'd passed on Augeas's stable.

Clearly Homeland Security's fuming:
"Bombs R Us" is a hit. They're assuming
Each month sales are higher.
They're right! Things look dire
For them since our business is booming.

In the days before Daphne was dead,
A deathwatch was held near her bed,
And as part of the vigil
An astrologer's sigil
Was painted in red on her spread.

Patriotic personifications
Are seen in cartoonist creations.
Brother Jonathan (who?)
Would lose out to the new
Uncle Sam ("I Want You") illustrations.

You may ask, "What are canthi?" I'll try
To define them: you've two on each eye.
They're where both eyelids meet:
One's beside your crow's feet;
One's where tears trickle out when you cry.

"God willing," Job said, "and the creek
Doesn't rise, the next month won't be bleak
As the last. We don't need
No more plagues. Still, I heed:
Though God slay me, I trust. Let Him speak."

Queen Elizabeth, that is, the Second,
Succeeded when death her Pa beckoned.
Her reign has been glorious,
Long and victorious.
One of the best, it is reckoned.

A Cartesian plane, I suspect,
Can't be flown in the air (I just checked);
Every math student knows
That it graphically shows
Where the x's and y's intersect.

Beachy Head, very high, very steep,
Is a cliff with a view of the deep
That has famous allure
For the ones who'd be sure
Of embracing an infinite sleep.

To give your next limerick a twist,
Use an assonant rhyme, just like this:
"With some honey, my tummy
Will feel warm and funny."
The vowels rhyme—the rest?  Not a bit!

In the year 305 Rome depended
On an emperor strong, rich and splendid.
As Galerius known,
It was latterly shown
That his hatred of Christians had ended.

I break into song when I bake
And put cinnamon into my cake:
"Oh, cinnamon, where
Will you run to?" — Don't care!
Then I chuckle until my sides ache.

Adhesive tape's handy, I guess,
Yet it sure gives me lots of distress.
It adheres to the floor,
To the door, and what's more,
Sticks to me, all gummed up — what a mess!

Write in verse! It's so good for the brain!
You need never feel boredom again!
And when everything fits
With no dangling bits
Your delight will be hard to contain!

Like myriad words we now use,
Biped's Latin, yet shouldn't confuse,
For it's simple and neat,
And a noun that's complete,
Meaning beasts with two feet (or two shoes).

Although fog, mist and rain as they pass
Leave no stain on the pane (hey — it's glass),
Over ages, they make
Its clear surface opaque.
It's devitrified, crazed, second-class.

Folks in Iowa tend to hate spice,
And garlic they think is "not nice."
For those in that land,
The bland leading the bland,
Salt and pepper are thought to suffice.

Two large gaseous masses, both burning—
'Round each, thanks to gravity, turning—
Not one star but two
(Three or more just won't do!).
About binary systems we're learning.

To keep foodstuffs contained makes good sense.
Wrapping cling film around things prevents
Air from drying out food.
(Fools might say it's a crude
Way of saving on condom-expense!)

You've acusis: your hearing's OK.
But a prefix implies "gone astray."
I've got hypoacusis —
I'm deaf. Has its uses:
"The lawn derry? What did you say?"

Have you heard of the witch-in-flight scandal,
Where a witch got cut off by a vandal
While flying her broom?
He came close, with a vroooom;
She got angry (she flew off the handle).

In a forest in Britain, a bloke
Stuck his head out a window to smoke.
Seeing smoke, passing strangers
Called fire-fighting rangers,
Who sprayed with their hose, as a joke.

Whenever I said "apartheid,"
My South African friends almost died.
"In our segregate state,
It was called apartheid,
Or it was before Nelson," they cried.

"You Enthusiasts!" — Term of abuse
For Dissenters with credos diffuse,
Who would over-enthuse
(Claimed their critics, whose views
Were themselves often rather abstruse).

Armageddon will startle and shock.
Good and evil have forces that lock
In a battle, they say,
That precedes Judgment Day.
Armageddon to think it's a crock.

If to Akiak, Alaska you fly,
Then your baggage is tagged AKI.
If your suitcase gets lost,
And you get a good frost,
Stay inside, where you'll keep warm and dry.

Human intellects do not combine
Just by addin'.  They need multiply'n'.
That is why halfwits twain
Have one fourth of a brain
And committees show barely a sign.

Here's a tribute, a paean, a toast
To the books that obsess me the most.
These page-turners capture
My passion—what rapture!
I'm deeply and fully engrossed.

Urged to try online dating, young Rod
Viewed each profile, and scanned every bod.
He logged on when he could,
So the odds would be good,
But the goods he went out with were odd.

The harvests of sugar crops wane
After many a month without rain,
So the farmers of Nod
Ask for blessings from God.
And the Lord sets a mark-up on cane.

Has that phony young basso (the preppy) gone?
His performance made clear he's an epigon
Who mimics a star,
Singing Godunov's czar,
While the audience asks: "Where's Siepi gone?"

He aligned with the right on abortion,
A mistake of an epic proportion.
For his wife up and left;
With accounts now bereft,
He relies on financial contortion.

My off-roadin' rig takes A-2s.
They're the tires that work when I cruise
Over rugged terrain—
Wheel-side down I'll remain.
For a street rod, they're not what I'd choose.

"3 a.m.—it's a date!" smiled Marie.
"In my bedroom I'll wait. Come to me."
Though I thought, "Piece o' cake,"
I could not stay awake
And conked off 'round a quarter to three.

A Cypriot mom (Nicosia)
Said a washing machine sure would free 'er
From washing the naps
Used by all her small chaps—
But mostly the one who's a pee-er.

Under enemy shelling, we call
In a counterstrike, hoping to stall
The advance of their force,
And have little remorse
That we've happened to kill one and all.

The blind arches held nowhere to hide —
All sealed off, with no cover supplied.
What appeared a broad pier:
Mere adornment. Eyes clear,
We kids shrugged and took capture in stride.

My manuscript — flat-out rejected! —
Was also so damned disrespected.
Disjection's the worst
(Getting scattered, dispersed).
It went flying — can't be resurrected.

Add adreno- to corticotropic
And then ACTH is the topic:
There's a hormone (arcane)
And a gland in the brain
Whose anterior lobe's microscopic.

Coty's chypre parfumerie floats
An aroma glissando of notes:
With a bergamot start,
Jasmine-labdanum heart,
Base of musk (but no longer from stoats).

A disqualification (DQ)
Is what happens in boxing when you
Have deliberately broken
The rules, like—no jokin'—
By biting an ear fully through.

When he went to be measured for specs,
Ms. Optometrist said, "Biconvex
Is the shape that you need
So you'll come up to speed!"
He replied, "Must we talk about sex?"

Propeller heads use lots of slang
While bit-banging code in some lang.
I'm confused, I affirm,
By their ballsiest term:
It's their statement that UNIX can !

In part four of his classical speech,
Which took him two hours to reach,
Came Al Gore's confutation
Of hope for this nation,
Refuting what talking heads preach.

Impressed by the tint of the sky,
The chemist decided to try
To create the same hue
As that warm shade of blue
By concocting an aniline dye.

Watch that Anglo-Arabian prance!
I would bet that he'll win, with that stance.
But I lost all my bread
On the last, by a head.
Any chance you'd extend an advance?

Aoristically speaking, he did;
What then happened, however, stays hid.
Did he finish somehow?
Does he still do it now?
Looks like Greek to you? Surely, you kid.

Over millions of years, science shows
Complex molecules could self-compose.
Though to some it's polemical,
Most believe that by chemical
Evolution life's compounds arose.

His comebacker cracked off my knee
As its speed was too rapid for me.
I can't run like before,
'Cause my knee's always  sore.
Guess  our farm club's the next team I'll see.

Mother got me a job as a banker
Since to deal with large sums I would hanker.
Now I'm digging away
In a ditch every day.
"Thanks a lot, Ma!" I said with great rancor.

If cuisine Provençal you embrace,
Then you must try a good bouillabaisse:
Make a stew out of fish,
Add Pernod to the dish
And enjoy any time, any place.

A wandering gremlin named Ira
Built a ramp and a wall in Elmira:
A construction so fine,
It inspired The Incline
And Wall of the Roamin' Imp, Ira.

My new SUV sure kicks ass,
But drinks fuel like you gulp from a glass.
My gas-guzzling tank
Is one huge (let's be frank)
SUG — it's sure Slurping Up Gas.

When he visits, my elfkin sure kittles
My fancy. But often he niddles
Up onto my shelf
(He's a really small elf)
And belittles my poems while he whittles.

All Manchester's now painted blue;
Aguero and Dzeko came through —
Escapologists par
Excellence. QPR?
Defeated — the Red Devils too!

The person who did this is blameless.
So, Officer, please keep him nameless.
Though I'm shot in the foot,
There's no reason to put
In your book I'm the shooter—and aimless.

A demonstrative man ought not play
Texas Hold 'Em, because he'd be prey
To the sharks who observe
Every twitch of a nerve.
Yelling "Wowie!" would give him away.

I had sunburn, real bad, on both thighs.
Said the nurse, "There's a cream I'd advise."
When she dabbed on some aloe,
Because I'm so shallow,
I dabbed bitter tears from my eyes.

When a patient is touched on his right,
But his left side feels something, we might
Diagnose allochiria.
Some further criteria:
Reversed ticklishness, hearing and sight.

I'm in love, which has rotted my brain.
But I'll say it again and again:
Though you don't look so glamorous,
You make me feel amorous—
Say, garbage man, am I insane?

Demitarians cut back, by half,
Their consumption of meat. What a laugh!
Does it make you more hale
If you eat half the whale
Or exchange a whole cow for the calf?

The name for the back of the neck
Is the cervix (or nape); and a peck
On that area's sure
To excite your amour,
So I'll give it a try—what the heck!

I asked Santa to leave me a cool bag
When he came Christmas Eve with his yule bag—
A new purse with some bling!
What did Kris Kringle bring?
Just a sack—for cold milk in my schoolbag!

You're owed money? Unpaid? This may mean
That as creditor you will be keen
To take steps. The law guides you
In that and provides you
Recourse to a general lien.

In the prophase of this cell's division,
There is action and no indecision.
It's diakinesis,
Releasing some pieces
That split but avoid a collision.

Said the councilman, "I have been stung
By our town's reputation.  We're hung
As the dirtiest place
On Java's fair face.
Let's live up to our name, folks — ban dung!"

I went to the car wash last week
To make my car shiny and sleek.
Then I learned, with a frown,
That the windows were down,
And the seats all got wet. What a leak!

My new botanist beau worked out fine,
Till I needed to open some wine.
"Pass the corkscrew", I said,
But he didn't. Instead
I was given some flowering vine.

At the ceilidh, on sharing a tipple,
My flautist friend showed me a fipple.
In his briefcase he dug
And extracted a "plug":
A wind mouthpiece (reverse of a nipple).

Michael Faraday, scientist rare:
Little schooling but talent to spare.
He provided instruction
On magnetic induction,
Electrolysis, other such fare.

Mags the dog has a tail full of wags.
She can smell what I've got in these bags.
It is bone meal (crushed bones),
But her barks turn to moans —
It's to spread on the flower-bed, Mags!

I'm an astrogeology jock,
And I study all bodies of rock,
Such as Pluto and Mars
And their moons (not the stars)—
Even Vulcan, the birthplace of Spock.

I won't marry my sweetie, Maria Blee—
She'll be just like her mother, foreseeably,
Who is, sad to report,
Nasty, brutish, and short,
So our marriage could end disagreeably.

By the thundering falls of Niagara,
The bridegroom gulped tabs of Viagra
With chasers of wine;
His bride says he's fine
Now, mishandled by gouty chiragra.

"Anecdotically", ranted my aunt,
"At college, I had a good grant,
But in no way I learned
How money is earned.
Therefore tell you? I honestly can't."

Drawings, diagrammatically sound,
That plot out the lie of the ground
(Landscape plans, with no hues,
Flat, cross-sectional views),
Stir no joy in my soul, I have found.

Aphrodite is more than a cutie,
She's the goddess of love and of beauty.
To praise her from Monday
Straight through until Sunday
I'd find a delight, not a duty.

Crystal ball? No, nor have I a prism
To predict whether Fourierism
Would be welcome or not
In our town, West LaMotte,
Or would broaching it lead to a schism.

"A cesspool of moral decay..."
My dad described Vegas that way.
"A cloaca, a sewer,
What'd they use as a lure
To make you choose—Slots! Hey, let's play!"

This message was posted on Twitter:
"A fall, three or four, from some critter
Now lives 'neath my house.
Each one squeaks like a mouse."
(And by fall, what they're meaning is litter.)

After hiking two weeks, I am sorry
We went on this half-assed safari.
A mistake, that's for sure,
Was this African tour
Titled "Stalking the Wild Calamari."

Said a wise automotive recorder,
"Oft crossing the Portuguese border
Was a car with the name
Abadal. And its fame?
It was first," here he smiled, "in what order?"

Of amenities here, there's a dearth —
Flashy neon, but nothing of worth.
Potholed asphalt and slums,
Filthy streets full of bums —
It's the arsehole, I'd say, of the earth.

Too obese, with digestive distress,
I obsessively eat to excess,
So the swelling and size
Of my belly belies
My professions of diet success.

She drowns her resentment in gin
And again ponders this: "Can I win?"
Then she wisely cuts short
Any thoughts of that sort
As she closes the door to get in.

An old moonshiner raked in the dough
Selling liquor from corn he would grow.
From his rusty old still,
Folks could drink for a bill,
Which he'd save to buy vintage Bordeaux.

My computer decided to speak.
My response, I'm afraid, was a shriek.
It said not a word more
As it finds me a bore
And my audial interface weak.

On the floor, near the blood-splattered wall,
Lies the man who was killed in the brawl.
From the drops, I can see
That he knelt on one knee,
Then was shot, then he started to crawl.

The portrait he made of my sister
Had her clothing all painted in bister.
"It's a dull yellow-brown,"
I remarked with a frown,
"Dressed in red, 'twould be hard to resist her."

A limerick coherently crafted
For this site will be carefully drafted
With good rhymes, thirteen feet,
And an anapest beat—
And maybe an author's note grafted.

Though disquieted's seldom expressed,
It's an adjective used to suggest
An uneasy affliction,
Be it real or fiction —
So lay off me; I'm anxious and stressed.

Hades-bound for a character flaw?
There's no ferry? Now, that's the last straw!
I'd sooner be sharin'
A boat ride with Charon.
Damned swimming? That Styx in my craw.

There's a glint in Messala's cold eyes,
"I'll give Judah Ben-Hur a surprise.
He won't expect strikes
From my chariot's spikes."
His comeuppance? He falls and he dies.

My chiropteran pet turned thirteen,
And the party I threw her was seen
By my buddy, who's Jewish,
As sort of a newish
Bat mitzvah. (You know what I mean?)

I am under the care of my shrink;
Just what is not letting me think?
Is it only the fly
That's annoying my eye?
Don't tell me I just need to blink.

Compensatory damages are
What I sued for when drunks wrecked my bar.
Though my lawsuit's a go,
It won't pay all I owe—
But my lawyer will buy a new car.

The boss, on the day before Lent,
Brought in fastnachts.  And now I repent
For what followed.  I'm so nuts
For raised, deep-fried donuts.
Office staff wondered where they all went.

A watchmaker looks for a token
Of delicate movements he's woken.
It's a curious trade—
Tiny gears are inlaid,
But because they're still fixed, they are broken.

For our trip to the Moon, as we planned it,
We thought, "We'll be seen when we land it,
If our rocket (pale rose)
Has some bands round its nose."
So we banded together to band it.

When Italians sit down to dine
And feel thirsty, they'll guzzle cheap wine.
But they'll sip, just for pleasure,
A regional treasure
Called classico — simply divine.

The speaker's ideas were jejune,
Like a lyric that's sung out of tune.
And the words he did speak
Were both barren and bleak.
The conclusion could not come too soon.

This fish hatchery's mine to raise fish;
To grow and eat fish is my wish.
I start with fish roe,
Then I help the fry grow —
The whitebaits I fry are delish!

An ensemble's a group of matched things:
A quartet that plays music or sings,
An assemblage of parts
Used in visual arts —
Or my gold lamé outfit that clings.

My guy says he's just a romantic;
He's gushy, effusive and frantic!
There's groping and kissing
But still something's missing —
His outpourings seem sycophantic.

To set off in motion quite quick,
To agitate thoughts (with a stick?),
To work at full stretch:
Several meanings I sketch—
Feague away is the phrase that I pick.

Surrounding our prez is a group
Of advisors who give him the scoop
On important affairs,
Yet he acts unawares.
Do the brain trusters know he's a stupe?

"Shall we drink one more bottle of wine?"
"But your face is beginning to shine,
You fall down, slur your speech;
Have no more, I beseech!"
I agreed, sick of arguing: "Fine."

Obama is being presumptuous,
And his tastes now appear rather sumptuous.
By deceit and by stealth
He is stealing our wealth
In a manner quite cocky and bumptious.

Not unlike an elongated shoe,
It's a boat that holds two: me and you.
Here's my problem: I fear
I don't know how to steer,
So I'll worriedly ask you, "Canoe?"

At the fair, we've signed up to be dunkees
At the dunking booth game, 'cause those monkeys
Just can't hit the side
Of a barn—they're so fried!
(Guess it's true that their patrons are junkies.)

I resolved my old image I'd scotch
With a makeover, carve a new notch.
So silk Y-fronts I wore
But I got rather sore:
The elastic was chafing my crotch.

Two cute teachers who taught kids from farms
(Sleeveless dresses enhanced all their charms)
Were told their attire
Sets young boys on fire—
"You do not have the right to bare arms!"

I've castration anxiety (fear
That my dad will be taking a shear
To my sex organs).  This
Is what happened to Sis.
Gotta get me the hell outta here!

She has eaten her last piece of bread,
And her last words she yesterday read
In her favorite thread.
What a sparkling-thoughts head—
And today she's deceased: she dropped dead!

In his sermons he mixed up Cabala
With visions of Odin's Valhalla;
But in spite of this wallowing,
He had a great following—
At the service he served wine and challah.

He outscored me, so he got the win.
Now he's smirking and rubbing it in.
It's not losing I mind.
But his gloating's unkind.
I can't stand his self-satisfied grin.

Academic admins, for a lark,
Alter faculty pay after dark
So professors will quake
At how little they make.
(This description is far off the mark.)

Envision the hummingbird, reader—
Flitting lightly from flower to feeder.
Her swift daily duty
Embodies pure beauty,
And my columbines earnestly need her.

The chatter continually poured
From one Nat when his teammates had scored.
With a mouth on the run,
He conveniently won
Their most voluble player award.

Clifford ("C", as he's known) rides a Harley.
CBers, such bikers all parley.
"Up ahead, past that tree,
Smokey's hiding, I see."
Cliff signs off with his handle. (That's "Charlie.")

At a clinic in East Marrakesh
Lies a patient with calcified flesh.
Liquefactive necrosis
Has caused calcinosis.
(His wounds are no longer that fresh.)

The cannibal king's cute annunciator,
A purportedly perfect pronunciator,
Had her facts all exact
But she lacked any tact.
When he figured the dame was a dunce, 'e ate 'er.

Commutability's when you can switch
X for 10, nook for niche, hitch for glitch.
Transmute specter to shade,
Make a substitute, trade,
Bucks for clams, ax for axe, slant for pitch.

Two brothers decided to vary in
Lifestyle, though both were agrarian.
Jehovah preferred
Abel's gift from his herd,
Which provoked the morose vegetarian.

Uri Geller bends spoons with his mind,
Though his critics are often unkind.
"Any feat that I do,
A magician can too,
Although I'm the real deal," he's opined.

An enolate's high concentration
In a ketone, and then dehydration,
Causes strengthy attraction—
A bonding reaction
That chemists call aldol condensation.

I was teaching vocab to some teens.
The moon's phases? They didn't know beans.
"A half-moon's what you view
In-between full and new.
'Just one buttock' is not what that means!"

There's a lot full of cars that he'll flaunt,
Crooning, "Let's make the deal that you want,"
But I can't trust this guy
With his hair combed up high
In a puffed-up, big bulbous bouffant.

Sudden chest pain, and part of your heart
Isn't beating right. Plaque plays no part —
Not infarction. You cry,
"Why did Joe have to die?"
And I write "broken heart" on your chart.

Massachusetts, the birthplace of pork,
Is a place to explore with a fork.
A man could get lost in
The butt back in Boston—
It's leaner than what's in New York.

Where once I spoke only Achagua,
You pressed me to learn: what a nag you are!
Without English, my dear,
I'd have had no career:
You drove me; now I drive a Jaguar!

Body's used in expressions of glee
And in oaths, says the famed OED.
So I guess it's all right
If tonight—in delight—
I ejaculate, "Body of me!"

On the racecourse, he's eager for action,
'Cause his biddy bridle stymies distraction.
Wearing blinders, he's docile,
Won't rear, bite or jostle.
When retired, he'll have stud satisfaction.

With no straight-line descendants to spare,
Her collateral nephew's sole heir.
But the will is legit,
And I have to admit
That he's single and handsome (my prayer).

Rotting logs in the woods luminesce
Due to fungi or something, I guess.
Though this foxfire effect
Seems misnamed, I suspect
That the fungi just couldn't care less.

Abradants wear down (or erode)
Great canyons where rivers have flowed,
But that takes forever.
A woman's more clever:
One look and my wife has me snowed.

"Signal's clear once again: five by five.
Thought I'd lost you; thank God you're alive.
Was your aerial wrecked?
Did your rig disconnect?"
"Cool your jets, Jack; I went for a drive."

These bookworms developed a taste
For the flavor of bindery paste.
They're the larvae of beetles—
A book's what they eatles,
So our library's going to waste.

It's essential to learn from mistakes
And to not place the blame on bad breaks.
If you curse lousy luck
Or try passing the buck,
Run for office. You have what it takes!

We were thinking of drinking our fill
At the neighborhood tavern and grill,
But the service was poor,
So we walked out the door
Without paying the bar tab (our bill).

Said a boastful old brute to his date,
"I can whip any man in this state!"
And when knocked on his rear,
He just shifted a gear:
"I can whip any man in debate!"

Daring Dan, as a great canyoneer,
Shows, when canyon-exploring, no fear.
Down ravines he'll rappel
To clefts tighter than hell.
(So is Dan — it's that pre-hiking beer.)

The crow's a most dastardly bird.
Any praise for this coward's absurd.
His cravenness shows
In the way that he goes
After weak little budgies, I've heard.

Enslavers could grant manumission
And to win it was each slave's ambition,
But to free ones and twos
Was hardly good news
Compared to complete abolition.

While explaining a logical tenet,
In a dennet, he drove to the Senate,
Where they honored this brilliant,
And also resilient,
Philosopher, Daniel C. Dennett.

Our clean, simple cosmos got dirty:
An object like BL Lacertae
That looks like a quasar
Is known as a blazar
If synchrotron beaming is spurty.

An anachorism isn't — not quite —
An anachronism. Let's get them right...
Snow in Egypt's the first,
While a film-Pharaoh's thirst
Is the second — if quenched by a Sprite.

He beat on the door (drummed his fist)
While he shouted, "You dastard, you kissed
My exquisite young wife!
Now I swear on my life
That I'll beat you to make you desist."

Automatic machines, without doubt,
Such as those put in laundromats, flout
Moral codes I approve.
They suggest you remove
All your clothes when the light flickers out.

Being bush-league, you're lacking in class—
Mediocre, a bit of an ass,
Like that nitwit and bore
Who says "nucular war"
And whose prattle is natural gas.

I just love my emoticon art —
Or you might say it's something I <3.
But, when typing gets loose,
It can lead to abuse
When you text your intended a 3<.

The King can be found every day
At the counting house, counting away
All the mountains of money
That buy bread and honey
For the Queen in the parlour so gay.

"The inhibitors taken, reverse
Transcriptase and protease, nurse,
Sure have helped," grinned a gay.
"Now my AIDS is at bay,
So I guess it's not time for the hearse."

'Thanks a lot,' said the buyer. 'Oh, boy!
It's got gadgets galore to deploy.
Lots of doodads as well
And the gimmicks are swell.'
'Yes, a gismo-rich product. Enjoy!'

Made a box that is carved out and beechen,
In the workshop that's what they've been teachin'.
I have learned all I should
About workin' in wood,
Now the joy of my craft I'll be preachin'.

Roads are wet, then they freeze and black ice
Is a danger, so take my advice:
Drive with care lest you skid,
And then crash—as I  did.
Now I'm cautious; it won't happen twice.

I can't take any more — I've a drawerful
Of bad copy from you — it's all awful.
An editor oughta
Prevent all this slaughter
Of English — Your grammar ain't lawful.

A capital offense? Not mysterious:
It's dastardly crime, one most serious.
You would once lose your head;
Now you'll simply be dead —
Healthwise, punishment most deleterious.

Apropos: timely move, opportune.
Case in point:  "Let's have lunch, since it's noon."
That's a typical sample.
One further example:
"Midnight's passed. You had best be off soon."

And used for if is now quaint,
Which I know is a minor complaint;
But it's also confusing
As and you are using
A palette of only one paint.

My spouse may be searching for honey
When he sometimes acts bearishly. Funny,
When the stock market does
I growl bearishly, 'cause
Stocks are down and we're losing our money.

I tune in for those things I adore:
Woman's Hour, The Archers, and more,
The Afternoon Play.
How empty, a day
Without BBC Radio 4!

For troops far from home, a BX
Supplies snackfood and books, but when next
To some unfriendly towns,
Nearby sounds can be rounds
Of attacks—so be quick writing checks.

A prostitute's income suffices,
If she works on her own.  My advice is:
With no pimp to extort
Half her take, she'll support
Herself well, at competitive prices.

We Luddites could make a good case
That the Web has a dangerous pace.
Though we fossilized meanies
Drink onion martinis,
We bypass that cyberspace place.

When one threw it the other would catch it
And throw it right back—not a scratch!  It
First seemed that their fight
Might go on the whole night
Till one said, "Let's just bury the hatchet."

I'm a geode, a natural wonder —
Dull surface, but crystalline under.
I'm a sweet, hollow rock —
C'mon, give me a knock.
Get a hammer and break me asunder.

As the funeral mourners emerge,
At the casket two pipers converge.
For Liam McShea,
Who'll be buried today,
There's a coronach (Gaelic, a dirge).

Every day a great boast Joe can claim.
He brags, "I'm at the top of my game!"
Yes, I know this sounds strange.
But Joe's scores never change —
His highs and his lows are the same!

Soon after (just post) World War II
The birth rate spiked up, right on cue.
As the "boomers" matured
And as sex was procured,
A wee baby boomlet came due.

At Ace Hardware, Jack's one of the buyers
(Kinda strange, filled with toolish desires).
Jack loves nails, bolts and hammers
But he yearns—no, he clamors—
To hear gripping tales about pliers.

I'm aware of the hazards I face
In this unsecured perilous place.
I'm exposed here alone
In a known danger zone.
I need help or I'll sink without trace.

Imagine one hundred and one
Dalmatians — oh what doggy fun!
With their spots, black and white,
They're a wonderful sight —
Energetic when out for a run.

Billy's boots—when they're worn, he declares:
"They're the answer to all of my prayers.
I can magically score
Unlike ever before"
(But it's soccer, so nobody cares).

L. Frank Baum wrote The Wizard of Oz;
And I think you should read it, because
The much-garlanded flick
Colors prose heel-click slick.
What a wonderful wordsmith he was!

It's a chancy and thankless career,
Dank and dirty, for year upon year.
The collier mines coal
So that great big brown pole
Will bring power to cool down your beer.

Albariño's a wine grape from Spain;
Makes a crisp and dry drink that you'd drain
From your glass if you sipped some,
And if you had dripped some,
No problem 'cause white wines won't stain.

Back to back, two pitched balls left the park.
A proud father and son made their mark.
First a blast from Ken Griffey,
Then his son, in a jiffy,
Hit another. For fans, what a lark!

Lack of food and disease were endured,
With no Agincourt victory assured,
But when Englishmen bend
Bows of yew to defend
England's king, then the outcome's secured.

When I heard that you think that I'm daft
(Which means silly or foolish), I laughed.
It is you who's confused,
And you keep me amused,
For you don't know your head from your aft.

What pests killed my best apple tree?
What critters are angering me?
Isn't mites make me mad,
But moth larvae, so bad—
Just tail a brown-tail and you'll see!

While flick'ring forked tongues are their fame,
Some snakes have tongues shaped like a flame.
But a genus of fern,
And some lilies, we learn,
All share adder's tongue as their name.

When parading around on one's yacht
(Something rich people do quite a lot),
One wears boat shoes: Like moccs,
Often worn without socks,
They prevent sudden falls on one's bot.

Sudden death! With a number one wood,
Danny hit the ball hard as he could.
It went all of three feet.
Now his failure's complete
With all chances to win gone for good.

On the drink since the Enterprise docked,
In this spirit transporter I'm locked.
Klingon blood wine was handy,
As was Saurian brandy.
(One more Romulan ale and I'm crocked.)

If a man has a painful erection
Because of a penis with flexion
Or urethra that's short, he
May suffer from chordee
And seek phalloplastic correction.

"Circumcision is nothing to fear,"
I'd been told, till a friend grabbed my ear:
"It's a thing to be missed.
At eight days, I was brissed,
And could not walk for almost a year!"

I called my son "angel-face" when,
As a boy of about nine or ten,
He appeared so cherubic.
Now he's acned and pubic;
I won't use that nickname again.

As CCTV tapes all action,
City centres hold much less attraction
To yobs whose great joy
Is to spoil and destroy —
City limits give more satisfaction.

The cloven-hoofed creatures decree
That their two toes are better than three,
But are forced to admit
That a hoof that's unsplit
Is a hoof of the highest degree.

"Please ready the liquid for tests:
Look for particles, min'rals and pests.
If you give it gyration
Does deflocculation
Occur? Go and check," he suggests.

On Virgin.cd you'll see
A CD by the Congo's CD.
It's called Hits Diplomatic,
But sadly, the static
Means a cd so large that it's free.

All of gangdom paid honors to Sal
Till his seat was usurped. Now Big Al
Gets you out of a pickle.
But mobsters are fickle:
They'll jump ship and give no rationale.

Great wealth and a high social status
Means the big-ups don't need to placate us.
Cars and houses they get,
Bought through others' hard sweat,
And if we seem upset they berate us!

"Beach volleyball," Nathan attests,
"Is exactly the game it suggests."
Why's this sport number one?
"Lots of sand, lots of sun,
Lots of barely clad buttocks and breasts!"

Attackers approaching our fort
Will find we're not easy to thwart.
We've bastions, with faces
Between them.  This place is
A redoubtable fortress, in short!

There's no doubt, it's as clear as can be
That my wife loves her big SUV.
Rain or snow, she'll arrive,
For its fine four-wheel drive 
Means she'll never be late for her tea.

The church service lasted too long.
So assented the congregate throng.
Clearing throats led the pastor
To preach a bit faster
And reach the recessional song.

I'll play fiddle and dance a bit, mate,
Or sing songs on request while you wait.
I don't mean to be brusque,
But my starting to busk
Is contingent on bucks in my plate.

The ventriloquist's party is swinging;
His canary, set free, is now winging
From table to chair.
Yes, the host's over there,
But I know why this birdcage is singing.

Sis and I, at our mother's insistence,
Have established (in peace) coexistence.
It works best, as a rule,
When she's gone off to school—
Coexistence improves with her distance.

No drama, no acts histrionic
Made these stones; they are purely plutonic —
No mounts in the making
Where these stones lay baking —
They're anorogenic, from districts demonic.

Children tempted to play hide-and-seek
On the banks of a small narrow creek
Will find dangers reside
With the incoming tide—
The outcome of which may be bleak.

"Dermatoglyphics!" Dan called, his voice heated.
In this quiz, he would not be defeated.
"Teacher, uncopyright-
able also I cite!"
(Fifteen letters where none are repeated.)

Caledonia, so I recall,
Was the high land beyond the stone wall
That ran through the north
(Firth of Clyde to the Forth)—
Where Rome's occupation would stall.

He walks with a stately progression
In a solemn religious procession:
As a  cross-bearer, he
Looks attractive to me
For his easy and peaceful profession.

Fancy tarts can't be served with the wine,
And those crisp baps are way out of line.
As for duck fricassee,
Y'can chuck it, for me.
Dr Spooner is coming to dine.

To avoid any marital strife,
Take a gamesome approach to your life.
Be merry and gay,
Stay playful all day,
And frolic a lot with your wife.

I am told that the French, far and near, meant
"Mon chou," as affection sincere. Bent
On aping them, we
In a cabbage-head spree,
Made "my cabbage" a term of endearment.

Say you're caught in a messy dispute
Since your neighbor, perhaps, has brought suit.
In a court altercation,
Use this: disputation.
You're bound to sound far more astute.

Roman Titus went out to get pissed,
But found lasses he couldn't resist.
He brought both of them home
(Which was common in Rome)
And engaged in a bigynist tryst.

Did I mention the pension convention?
There was tension and then some contention.
Fierce debate about perks
(Who, what, why, how it works)
Caused dissention, then meeting suspension.

The Navy meant faraway places—
Exotic the sounds and the faces,
Djibouti to Nome…
Now Mom's welcomed me home
With a hug and, "Son, do up your laces."

Crowns of sonnets I've laid out before her,
Yet she doesn't suspect I adore her.
Each byway she frequents
Has a poetry sequence,
As do rooms where I long to explore her.

Should you ask an astronomer nerd,
He'd say, "Perigee, that's the right word
When earth's nearest the moon,
That fine term's opportune."
And the apogee? Furthest, I've heard.

Your degree made you quickly employable
In a job you find highly enjoyable.
Your good name keeps you there—
Avoid slander; beware:
Reputations are wholly destroyable.

The doctor said, "Should it progress
Your fever will cause real distress."
"But Doc, understand—
Feeling healthy is bland.
I'm trying to not defervesce."

When you write all those bytes to your disk,
They get juxtaposed, squeezed, in a whisk.
You can't just pretend
Knowing where columns end.
You delimit the fields.  End of risk.

By their nature (that's by definition),
Crocodilians employ their dentition
In the strongest of bites
Without reading the rights
Of whomever might furnish nutrition.

A boomerang's shaped in a way
That, when tossed, it returns. Hip, hooray!
So I practiced my throw
And at last let it go.
It's now missing, six hours astray.

Brother Dom takes hot meals to the poor;
Tender Daisy's half-dressed at the door.
She claps eyes on this hunk
And forgets he's a monk.
Now, alas, the hot meal's on the floor.

A conveyancer: someone whose deeds
Will fulfil all one's property needs.
Whether buying or selling,
He'll transfer your dwelling
In a language no layperson reads.

A state of contentment is great—
You're at ease, you're fulfilled, free of hate.
But when there's dissension,
It leads to contention
And enmity slow to abate.

In Bolivian jungles it's dark,
But the Indian found yellow bark
And described this reliever
Of torment and fever.
Calisaya (his name) left its mark!

The crawfish, a freshwater beast
(Call his poppa a crawdad, at least),
For its size may be vicious,
But man, it's delicious.
On bushels of crayfish we feast.

I was looking to jazz up my biscuit
With sauce and a fresh slice of brisket.
My wife said, "But how
Could you hazard 'mad cow'?"
I replied, "For this treat I shall risk it."

The fire salamander is black
With bright spots on his legs, tail and back.
He likes hiding away
In the forest all day,
And it stings when he's forced to attack.

An acronymaniac's one
Who finds making up acronyms fun.
Get a bunch in a room,
Then it's safe to assume
This pursuit will be way overdone.

I've dusted the dance floor with powder
(French chalk), and I couldn't be prouder:
Girls aglow and boys tall
At the graduate ball,
They'll recall they made summer come louder.

Some say Hopalong Cassidy's mount
Could perform any trick, even count.
Others claim that's a whopper
But they all agree Topper
Was a friend Hoppy'd never discount.

Fair maiden was never yet won
By faintheartedness, no, no, my son!
And I'd like what I saw
As my daughter-in-law,
So be bold; take a hold, and have fun.

"How I hate bitter-enders like you.
Can't we go?  They won't win.  Get a clue."
"It ain't over, my friend,
Till it's over, the end.
Since I'm driving, we'll stay till they're through."

Dotty asks her friend Wiz for elixir
To cure her son's cold, but he tricks her.
"Your draught missed the mark;
My boy's cough's still a bark,
Oh, and now he's a DOG!" (...as he licks her.)

In our youth, we were cherry bomb flingers.
How the memory of gunpowder lingers!
Now they're gone. We've been cursed
By two words: "Safety First!"
We've grown far too attached to our fingers!

With cursoriness lately I treat
The decision of what I will eat.
I don't brood anymore;
I just hastily pour
Cold Dos Equis on warm Cream of Wheat.

From Byblos came spatulas, plates
With intriguing linguistical traits.
Byblic babble defies
All decipherment tries:
To hieratic, it maybe relates?

When danger is close on the trail,
The glass lizard sheds part of its tail.
Though seemingly fragile,
It's snakily agile:
Not broken, but heartily hale.

The cycle helps run most machines.
Electricians know well what it means:
For them it's a period
Of AC. A myriad
Of cycles now animate screens.

Mama studied Delilah, dismayed:
After church, her sweet angel had strayed.
"Dragged your dress through the dirt?
Girl, you've frazzled your skirt.
Look, the hem's become tattered and frayed."

You're feeling compunctious and sad,
Full of sorrow for smacking your dad.
Now he's very upset,
And you're filled with regret.
Your dad's mad and you're sad; you feel bad.

Our black mulberry tree, every May,
Hosts a riot of robins at play.
There they nest, lay eggs, chirp,
Ripened berries decerp,
And gulp fruit that's decerpt, plucked away.

Some phobics come under arachno-,
From spiders who creep on their back. No,
It's fear not of war,
But of crawlers galore
That these sufferers under attack know.

See the Wimbledon waitress who ferries
Dessert to the Barrie's and Terry's.
What's under the cream?
There's a shiny red gleam.
She's bacciferous: bearing them berries!

Cacogenics attempts to convey
How two parents, both geniuses, may
Have a daughter or son
Who, when all's said and done,
Will just sleep and write limericks all day.

The passengers scream out in fright;
Pilot tries, but the gear doesn't bite.
There's a sharp, scraping sound—
Belly landing on ground—
And the pilot sighs, "Phew, we're all right!"

Spock to Kirk: Our unbeatable foe
Left the Enterprise no way to go.
So I'm forced to deduct,
We must auto-destruct.
You won't like that; it's logical though.

We've got thousands of units to shift,
So we won't be encouraging thrift.
Come, be generous, friend:
Time to spend, spend, spend, spend!
Christmastide—what a wonderful gift!

"On our taxes I'm falling behind.
Paying late means we're bound to be fined.
I'm not sure what to do."
"Your behind's falling too,"
Mused my spouse. Though that's true, it's unkind.

Current income: that's dollars and cents
Earned from dividends, interest, or rents.
My income is current-
ly rather deterrent
To spending a lot, so I'm tense.

When I talked of the plants that I handle,
My hearers sensed terrible scandal:
Since I said I'd seen broomrape,
They felt bound to assume rape
With a broomstick by some wicked vandal.

Certiorari: a type of a writ
A superior court will submit
To a body below
For the records to know
If a judgment was proper and fit.

I return to my woods, though I reckon
The bottles my love breaks the neck on
Are all drunk—as is she:
Her carousing's a plea
My own backcountry bacchant to beckon.

She really believes he's a gent
And his sweet honeyed words are all meant.
He moves into her place
With a smile on his face
'Cause he'll con her till everything's spent.

Your leisurely ambulance drive'll
Be bad for your chance of survival.
ER doctors'll say,
"We're too late—DOA."
What a shame you'll be dead on arrival.

When working on graphic designs,
The edges, an artist defines.
These bleed marks show borders
To give pressmen orders
So ink can go up to the lines.

Aliteracy: yes, you can read,
But the thought of it bores you indeed.
One look at a book
And your noggin's all shook,
And a newspaper makes your eyes bleed.

I had a blind date with a lady,
A hot one named Daisy O'Grady.
She seemed rather keen,
But, while I was 18,
She was (contradistinctively) 80.

Every closed, time-like curve we surmise in
A region implies a horizon.
Though chronology's torn
When you transit that bourne,
If you ponder too long, you will wizen.

"Our laws need the strictest enforcement!"
Was my platform, a pitch that of course meant
I needed some cops
To proclaim I was tops.
(I got slaughtered without their endorsement.)

In the cold earth rots Willard E. Dunn,
Who'd robbed banks for both money and fun.
At his last heist got shot—
Said his shooter, "I thought
He had made a false move for his gun."

Her grandfather's scale had its merits —
He could measure one hair of Liz Barrett's.
The demo had ended;
The child apprehended.
"But why do we weigh things in carrots?"

The birds struck our plane with a shiver.
Will we crash down on houses? Hearts quiver!
But Sully, in haste,
With no time to waste,
Splash-lands us all safe on the river.

First my boss said, "You're fired!" then this:
"Your sweet wife says she'll marry me, Chris.
You will just have to leave her
And your golden retriever."
That guy is a real can of piss!

Yes, a corporate inversion we need
To avoid US tax.  Let's proceed —
Re-incorporate, go
To where taxes are low.
Love our country? Hell no, we love greed!

A sous chef from Podvolochisk
Could cook up a mean lobster bisque;
She'd add extra cream,
Fresh mussels and bream,
And mix it all up with a whisk.

Our puppy, who'd cornered a mole,
Was unsure of her trap-and-kill role.
Did she mean it? Too scared,
She herself seemed ensnared,
With her play-chasing out of control.

When a calculist's hot in pursuit
Of a slope, an extremum, or root,
What differentiates him
From the dumb and the dim
Is the means to astutely compute.

"If I'm wrong, then I'll eat my hat."  You
Were so sure, as were many.  Who knew?
You all harbored no doubt.
I said, "Don't count him out."
Now we see your worst nightmare come true.

When you're deep, engineer, in abstraction,
You're a nexus of immanent action,
And there's no way to know
(It's a manager's woe!)
If you've strayed to a limerick's attraction.

The term Chermidae now is passé;
It's a taxon that's not used today.
Need to ID a louse
On a plant in your house?
They're in Psyllidae now, where they'll stay.

Antivenin? I thought that I'd packed it,
But, with horror, discovered I lacked it.
If attacked by a snake,
I'd have nothing to take
For the poison, to help counteract it.

In the shadows, The Reaper awaits,
Well aware of my desperate straits.
At the end of my livin',
The dealer has given
Me nothin' but aces and eights.

Corticiform growth is like bark
On a maple or oak in the park—
Or my rough-textured skin
(To my shame and chagrin),
So I dress and undress in the dark.

An Amerind princess (Mohican)
Had ambitions to strengthen, not weaken,
Her church. Never sinister,
She'd help out her minister
As deaconess—feminine deacon.

Cytologic, this smear over here
Shows a red cell that looks like a sphere,
And the white cells look queer.
It's a new disease, dear;
I'll describe it and boost my career.

"An aeronaut: That's my true calling,"
Said the blimp driver as they were falling.
Said his testy wife Violet,
"You're only a pilot —
At which, may I add, you're appalling!"

The pinkie's improbable name—
The auricular—seemingly came
From its noted acumen
Dislodging cerumen,
A dubious sort of acclaim.

From  all tightness my waist shall be free:
No more girdles or cinctures for me!
Without bodices sheathing
My torso, I'm breathing—
And bursting with corsetless glee!

My bunny is broken; I know.
The mother was white, but that doe
Had promiscuous habits
With alien rabbits.
Her blue-brindled kit, I can't show.

To cope with genetic mutation,
Among codons we find duplication.
Law and order we venerate,
Yet our code is degenerate
(Yours and mine — I don't speak of the nation).

Pregnant mothers, when asked, have agreed
That when hearing the Doppler's "stampede"
Of their new baby's heart
Through the audio part,
They'd all burst into tears, guaranteed.

Her Bokhara of velvety red:
I could not get it out of my head.
By deceit and design,
Her fine carpet's now mine,
The particulars best left unsaid.

I'm a filthy and toothless old guy;
Hard up  hookers won't give me the eye.
They yell, "You're the pits—
Full of zits upon zits!"
I'm an eyesore, no use to deny.

Insomnia! Can't get to sleep!
My poor brain's going bippety beep!
Ethchlorvynol's my med
Before going to bed —
It won't give me much time to count sheep.

The DJ played great acid house
So that I, once as shy as a mouse,
Rocked to deep pounding bass
As I danced 'round the place,
And I slowly unbuttoned my blouse.

The busy nurse gave out a shout —
Giving out that the flu was about.
Then she gave out injections
To ward off infections.
Exhausted, the woman gave out.

Got a tent set up under a tree,
So serene, just my sweetheart and me.
To make everything spiffy,
I need a  real biffy—
Where does he expect me to pee?

The blue penciler moaned, "I'm so vexed
By explicitly oversexed text
In this body of copy
(So shoddy! No, sloppy!)
I think I'll delete what comes

A new gemstone's arrived, you should know.
They were ammonites once, long ago.
Now ammolite sells
As delicate shells,
Iridescently stealing the show.

Enzootic diseases in creatures
Are possessed of the following features:
Ever-present, each case
Is in one local place
(So they say, my zoology teachers).

My handwriting's just a tad iffy—
This code can't be cracked in a jiffy.
At times it's so runic
You might tear your tunic
Deciphering my scrawl, it's so glyphy.

"Please, an interview, ma'am?"  "Yes, I'll letcha.
I'm busy right now, but I'll catch ya
On the flip side."  "Okay.
I can wait one more day.
See you later, Ms. Palin."  "You betcha!"

There's a difference 'tween "though" and "although,"
Although it is subtle, I know.
Use "though" when in doubt;
The linguists won't shout.
Tho spell it like this?  I say "NO!"

Ohio's a bellwether state.
Its electors will choose on that date
In the fall, it appears,
Winners every four years.
JFK was the last to dodge fate.

A durzee, an Indian tailor,
Was romanced by my buddy, a sailor.
I needled him: "Joe,
Tell me, how did things go?"
He replied, "Just so-so.  Couldn't nail 'er"

"I am looking for love at first sight
With a blonde who has teeth dazzling white,
And is scantily clad."
For my personal ad,
This description sounds just about right.

If you happen upon moldy nuts,
Best eschew them, no ifs, ands, or buts!
Their foul aflatoxin
Will spread like a pox in
Your liver, destroying your guts.

An armer is one who'll prepare
With armaments, armies who dare,
If well-armored, to go
Into war against foe,
While the armor's what soldiers will wear.

Now my digamous life is a breeze,
Though my first wife was murder to please.
I am happy, remarried,
My first bride is buried,
And for me, wives will not come in threes.

Roddy Roth was a nihilist goth
All aflame with unquenchable wrath
Till his seam-splitting blues
Were dispelled by new trews
Made of silk from the cynthia moth.

As a word in that great Aussie song,
To dismiss it as nonsense is wrong;
It's an outback-style well.
Though the water's not swell,
To the billabong creatures can throng.

Most comets have "hair" when they're hauled
To the sun, in whose grip they're enthralled.
But repeatedly shedding
A coma's tough sledding:
In time, they grow feeble and bald.

I agreed to the date, but I fear
That my suitor's no young cavalier.
He's a guy on a camel
(A smelly, humped mammal),
And driving the thing's his career!

In this season of sunshine and showers
My garden grew large yellow flowers.
Amsinckia is
What they're called, and gee whiz!
I can sit and admire them for hours.

Ornamental, with smooth and thin bark,
Are the beech trees you find in the park.
Carved by folks without smarts
Are initials and hearts.
Trunks are scarred, there's a permanent mark.

Quoth the office wall icon, "Achieve!
You can if you'll only believe."
Then I saw a bright light,
Found the truth in the trite;
Now I walk a new path, "self-deceive."

The striker's unhindered deflection
Went wide, then the hooligan section
Proceeded to put
The poor athlete's foot,
With his head, in their trophy collection.

Sir John Falstaff led Prince Hal astray,
Was a coward and cheat — but, I pray,
On this man don't be hard;
'Twas the pen of the Bard
That had writ him thus, all in fair play.

This geometry textbook provides
A solution that helpfully guides
As I take my exam.
"What's a chiliagon?" "Ma'am,
It's a figure with one thousand sides."

The handyman club planned a banner
To stretch 'cross the wall, so their planner
Got tools, cloth, and paint.
(A safe artist, he ain't.)
He became the club's scarred, tangled spanner.

A diacope, also called tmesis,
Cuts a word into two distinct pieces.
A new word's injected;
The meaning's protected —
In fact, interest in-freakin'-creases.

Both the tribe-prince of Judah and spy,
Dogged Caleb would never say "die."
While the other ten jeered,
He and Joshua cheered,
"We can certainly win if we try!"

There's a fever for flipping. I've caught it.
Bank foreclosed on your house, so I sought it;
Fixed the roof, fixed the drains,
Fixed the stove, fixed the panes,
Sold for profit — 'cause that's why I bought it.

Acanthology's focus is spines,
But it's only particular kinds.
They're not humans' or books'
But those sea urchins' hooks,
Many sharper than dinner forks' tines.

Your aroma, it makes me obey!
I can't help it; I'm headed your way.
It's your chemoattractant —
I'm over-reactant!
No way I can dodge your bouquet.

Bush's Brain is one name for Karl Rove,
And when push comes to shove, well, this cove
Does for Bushies his best,
Writing speeches. The rest
Can be seen in the evils he wove.

To calm (of a ship): "to delay";
In the spot where you've stopped you will stay.
If your motive power's wind,
Then in place you are pinned
If the zephyrs won't come out to play.

For directness and candor he's known;
Calls 'em just as he sees 'em — a tone
That seems phony because
It's just other folks' flaws
That he notices, never his own.

They're arraigning an angel in heaven
Who's charged with purloining the leaven.
(This arraigning has airs
With its five letter-pairs—
Scintillescent is said to have seven.)

Where's a stunningly beautiful chick
Who can get this old heart beating quick —
A divine goddess face
To take back to my place?
Drop-dead gorgeous, yes, that's who I'd pick.

What's a battlement? It is a sort
Of a parapet, built on a fort.
A battement, by the way,
Is a move in ballet:
Foot kicks out, foot comes back.  End report.

Siren wailing, the ambulance crew,
On arrival, some rough comments drew:
"Cor, 'is 'ead made a thud!"
"Crikey, look at the blood!"
"Oh, you're 'ere — about bleedin' time too!"

Six on one end and three on the other.
Nothing mates. Play a two, please, you mother.
But my foe plays a five,
So his game's still alive,
'Cause the boneyard's my turn: pick another.

An archbishopric: this is the base
That the archbishop's powers embrace.
Each monsignor and priest,
From the highest to least,
Is respected (if not in disgrace).

She denies she's a true barracuda —
Says she's kind, and we've all misconstrueda.
So I said, "There's a chance.
Here's my hand in romance."
Which she ate.  Guess I shoulda escheweda.

Now my aunt doesn't visit. Her copter
Is sadly the thing that has stopped her.
When a gust caught its rotor,
With help from the motor,
It chopped her, then — shudder — it topped her.

Said a virgin, "I'd like to abstain
From premarital sex."  "Why refrain?"
Asked the guy she was dating.
They were later caught mating
At Bob's Quickie Chapel on Main.

Your fumbling attempts to impress
Show incompetence, lack of finesse.
Here's advice you should heed:
Boil the eggs that you need.
Then your juggling won't leave such a mess.

They tromped through the swamp in their waders,
But bechanced to advance on some 'gators.
They noted their error
With stark raving terror,
Which made them great 'gator evaders.

The Blue Nile: at Khartoum, you'll agree,
It combines with the White Nile to be
The Nile River of note
Which would let pharaohs float
To the Mediterranean Sea.

A Dutch angle horizon's not true,
Out of kilter and shot upward too—
Say from under a desk—
It's distorted, grotesque.
And we sense something weird will ensue.

In physics most constants depend
On the units your texts recommend.
From system to system
They vary! So list 'em
In units we all comprehend.

Herman Cain said, "I'm doin' just fine
And I'll be on the GOP line."
Did voters determine
That pizza-man Herman
Was the man or cry out "Nein, Nein, Nein!"?

Pelopia, screwed by her dad,
Thyestes, got pregnant and had
Aegisthus, a son,
Who she opted to shun…
Now it's here that the story gets bad.

The urology expert in Dallas is
Submitting his final analysis.
Cystoplegia  is what
The doc says that I've got—
Of my bladder, a total paralysis!

When I sat on a haystack—a bale—
I felt what I thought was a nail
Stick me right in the rump—
Made me needle-lessly jump.
But my mates don't believe this tall tale.

Minnie Phelps is 14 and in love!
It's a mania, a force from above,
An emotional stew,
Giddy, wild amour fou!
(Cupid helped her along with a shove.)

Poor John Napier foundered in fog;
Condensed vapor had covered the bog.
He was groggy, unable
To work at his table;
Unstable, he tripped on a log.

Dex the dextrer is feeling quite blue
Since his days as a war horse are through.
He can no longer race
Into battle.  Let's face
It; his future is gonna be glue.

The microbe at which Peter's peeking
I believe is the one that is sneaking
Into tissues with ease
And has caused your disease—
That is, etiologically speaking.

Aloaceae subdivide our
Liliaceae family of flower
(They include aloe-ver'
But not peppermint spear),
Or they don't: it's the fight of the hour.

His fury (great anger) was vented
On the putter — now gone, not lamented.
Having failed on green 3,
It wound up in the sea.
Both his pride and his purse have been dented.

I surmised it was non-controversial,
Anti-AIDS; have you seen the commercial?
In a dignified tone
Several condoms were shown —
That sufficed to arouse the inertial.

I'm in mourning: I lost my dear Beth,
Who was drowned in the sea near Polzeath
Long ago. Were I braver,
I'd've swum out to save her.
I shall never get over her death.

You're not such a bad sort of bloke,
But your cricketing skills are a joke.
You first lift up the bat
But then leave it at that.
Such a backlift should augur a stroke!

Though the walls that were covered in red
Have been painted pure white now instead,
From that room I must flee
Because all I can see
Are the pictures of blood in my head.

The action performed when you're stating
That objects are equal's equating.
They need not be the same
(That's identifying's game),
Just "the same" in the way you're relating.

I am guilty, with no explanation,
Of committing a gross violation,
So I'm singing the blues—
The detergent I use
Isn't subject to biodegradation.

Our friend has a strange fascination:
Finding gold. It's a side occupation
'Cause he can't make a living
From washing and sieving;
Elutriation just leads to frustration.

A sharp toe to my ribs; I awoke.
"Lazy lout! Grab thy shovel and stoke!"
My boiler room snooze
Had now earned me a bruise.
In a trice I was shovelling coke.

I doubt that the inmate's parolable—
In prison, he's quite uncontrollable—
But his wife wants him out.
If we keep him, no doubt,
His old lady will not be consolable.

There's no margin or room to suspect
A mistake with a cut that's direct.
Though you've said, "How d'ye do?"
He just glares and looks through
You. Your friendship is certainly wrecked.

In the village, the smith's on your right,
But its chestnut tree died from the blight,
And the smith's old and weak,
Now a useless antique,
As true horsepower faded from sight.

A student of astrolithology
Had a vice he would never acknowledge: he
Would go out at night
With a meteorite...
(I can't bear to say more; my apology.)

There is nothing at all I won't do
To exhibit my fervor for you.
As I pledged from the start,
I'll now give you my heart.
Ho boy — does that smart! Fond adieu.

Diapositives, also called slides,
Are photographs; round all four sides
There's a stiff little frame.
Viewing each is your aim,
As through a projector it glides.

Theologian of note, Johann Eck,
Saw reforms, for a time, held in check.
Martin Luther's chief foe,
He sustained status quo —
To the Protestants: pain in the neck.

"O brother of mine, have you heard?
They're apparently dropping a word
From the dictionary." "Really?"
"Yeah, credulous, clearly.
Next, gullible's getting the bird."

By the act of condemning a man
For improper behavior, we can
Make him subject to censure.
(A serial Frencher
Of women might merit a ban.)

Bring it on!  We will never be cowed.
We'll stay standing resilient and proud.
Are we up for a fight
Against evil?  Damn right!
Terror simply will not be allowed.

His main traits are his filth and his smell,
Yet tonight I admit he looks swell.
He's been scrubbed, I'll allow.
And that tux? Holy cow!
For a hobo, he cleans up real well.

The phrase dancing on air means to be
Very happy or hanged from a tree.
Though that's how it's defined,
Something else comes to mind:
When you boogied on Soul Train with me.

In the life of a judge, 'twould appear,
There'd be no need to budge one's large rear,
But the old circuit judge
Was expected to trudge
While he drudged as the law's circuiteer.

Many Scotsmen well relish a dram;
It's a measure of treasure, no sham.
And a flask at the hip
Can provide such a nip
In a train or a bus or a tram.

Let French billy-goats lock up their daughters,
Lest they're used to raise guns (maybe mortars),
Or make gloves of chevrette —
There's no finer kid yet
To get waiters to bring you the waters.

"I've a druk for a watchdog," says Juan.
(I want some of whatever he's on!
Druks don't pose any threat
Since they're mythical, yet
They're the national beast of Bhutan.)

You sold me a baseball team, you did,
But I feel as though I've been deluded.
There were no pitchers—none—
And no catchers—not one—
Because batteries weren't included.

The sound of the Canterbury bell
Isn't bell-like because, truth to tell,
It's a plant with blue flowers
And you'd listen for hours —
And all that you'd hear is its smell.

It's called cytomegalic inclusion
Disease—it's a nasty intrusion.
When a baby's infected,
Its mother's expected
To suffer despair and confusion.

Game of flats. See the lads.  Chew the fat.
Staked the lot on four queens (yes!) but that
Was pipped (NO!) by four kings.
Lost my flat, all my things,
And so that's why I'm feeling so flat.

Befitting, competible, suitable
Are synonyms, hardly inscrutable.
My knowledge of this is
Much less than of kisses,
And that is by no means disputable.

Your front and rear lawns are immense,
Yet you've circled them.  Sure, this tall fence
Of barbed wire round the yard
Means intruders are barred,
But it's hard to defend the expense.

Antique fashions among the well-heeled
Had the bongrace, a brimmed hat (a shield),
To provide some protection
For eyes and complexion;
From sun was a lady concealed.

Cooked, briarroot tolerates heat,
So the shrub is a pipe maker's treat.
It's a middling sized tree
Grown throughout the maquis
Yielding wood that's a smoker's elite.

You're a smart-ass, with savvy, you're fly.
Yes, you boast you're more brainy than I.
You're a bright spark, you're quick,
You are one clever dick,
And yet . . . I've got the last slice of pie.

She goes hunting used pop cans all day:
Loads of empties she's stashing away.
She's been cramming her closets
With nickel deposits.
She'll redeem them. Well, some day, she may.

The alpine zone: one I adore
With its beautiful mountains that soar.
It has glaciers strong,
From its heights some are long,
As they flow to the deep valley floor.

I've got dentoalveolar pain
And bad breath that's so foul I'm a bane.
Having teeth with deep pockets
Of pus in their sockets,
I've emptied this car of the train.

A bystander's giving the eye
To the champion pigs in a sty.
Being poor, he's resolved
To remain uninvolved
Since he hasn't the standing to buy.

Notwithstanding my loud histrionics,
I can no longer feel my acronyx.
That's a toenail, ingrown,
So my sine qua non
Is a number of strong gin and tonics.

That's Fahrenheit! Celsius, please.
A conversion is simply a breeze.
First subtract; then divide;
And the last step applied
Is to multiply up the degrees.

Over mountainous waves we were hurled
As we sailed half the way round the world.
Now our roaming has stopped,
And our anchors are dropped.
All our sails and our flags have been furled.

To make my wife smile, I seem powerless—
I wish I could get her to glower less.
Her birthday? Oh no!
I forgot it, and so
I have left her both chocolate and flowerless.

Rude shoppers can give staff a fright
When bad attitude carries real bite;
But they come with a stash
(Credit, bank cards and cash)—
Hence the saying: "The customer's right!"

If you live east of Europe, and you
Have a culture that's ancient and true,
And hate TV and Cokes,
Find McDonald's a hoax,
Anti-western may be your world view.

I'm beaked salmon, known too as beaked sandfish.
I'm a dig-with-my-snout-close-to-land fish.
In the shallows I stay,
Where I could become prey,
Though I don't wish to end up a canned fish.

In cricket, white lines are called creases,
Dividing the pitch into pieces.
There's the bowling, the popping,
The batting… I'm stopping!
The supply of crease words never ceases.

Baby buggy: four wheels and a seat,
Plus a baby to make it complete.
Here's a joke I'll revive:
Tell me, how do you drive
A baby buggy?  You tickle his feet!

I will make this thing work, if I'm able:
I will add a room onto my gable.
If it doesn't work out,
I will scream and I'll pout,
Then get back to the old drawing table.

Citronella's an oil with potential.
Indeed, it's considered essential,
Which gives it great hope,
When it's scenting a soap,
Of proving itself influential.

This bullfighter's garment is drapeable,
And it's flippable, flappable, shapeable.
Toro thrusts at the cape,
Which he cannot escape
Till he's killed, if the matador's capable.

Folks, meet Snead.  I suggest that you heed 'er —
She's our ammeter/voltmeter reader.
She's the best; no deterrent
Slows her measuring current
And voltage with speed — Snead's the leader!

If you render a rainbow in paint,
Then its pure spectral colours just ain't.
But the paint's chromaticity
Fools your eyes with felicity,
And you'll find there's no cause for complaint.

I wuz shovellin' sugar, no sass—
Gotta slap in me face from me lass.
She near left me half dead
On account of I said,
"Hon, you sho gotta load of bagasse."

A cabbage is known as a head,
But a wise word no cabbage has said.
The green leaves I tend
Are the banknotes I spend.
Trusty cabbage is my daily bread.

While painting your portrait I toil,
So don't touch it, or else you may spoil
Its smooth surface and smear
Your austerely daubed ear.
It's still wet, though I use drying oil.

Here, a limerick has five metric lines,
And contains any word it defines,
And there's two sets of rhymes.
Well, normally,
That's, usually,
How, ordinarily,
It's, typically,
Done, generally.
Though we're wacky at times,
It's the form that OEDILF still enshrines.

Researchers are using a toxin
In their labs (they have named it alloxan)
To give rats diabetes,
Despite our entreaties,
Unless A.L.F.'s throwing rocks in.

Green Luigi, a musical elf,
Puts his Autoharp back on the shelf.
"By its name, I've oft said,
Many folks are misled.
You must strum it; it won't play itself!"

By the idiom "Queen Anne is dead,"
"Nothing new" is implicitly said;
But when Anne was alive,
In society jive
"Queen Elizabeth" featured instead.

A great painter, a writer, a star,
BC native but traveled afar.
You won't know the best
Of Pacific's Northwest
Until you can say you've read Carr.

A boomerang's made out of wood.
Once you've thrown it as hard as you could,
Then it ought to come back
On a circular track.
If it doesn't, it's really no good.

The man on third base? Yeah, he scored.
And the pitcher? He's out of his gourd!
He just issued (the ass!)
An intentional pass
With three runners already aboard!

I've had five colonoscopies. None of them
Were pleasant. That's why we make fun of them.
This photography brings
To your mind many things
As they shoot. (Saying "Cheese!" isn't one of them.)

"Dear wife, I have news that is grand:
My corporate future is planned.
Though the layoffs unnerved,
My position's preserved."
"In other words, dear, you've been canned."

At work, if you've moments capacious
That allow for sweet daydreams salacious,
Romance can sound cheap
With the mobile phone beep
Of an incoming text that's flirtatious.

I served left-handed pitcher Jim Kaat
A liqueur that is called advocaat.
It's like eggnog.  Some note
It might help clear your throat.
Tell me, what do you think about thaat?

From Saskatchewan, fed by the snows,
The Assiniboine River now flows
To the east—to the Red,
Which runs northward instead
To Lake Winnipeg. That's how it goes.

We won't let you fall down on your fanny.
The government's here as your nanny.
Life's road we will pave,
Helping cradle to grave,
From a babe to a grandpa or granny.

There's a bug in my BIOS, you see—
My computer's not talking to me.
And I can't talk to it,
Not a byte nor a bit!
Can you fix it for me, for a fee?

My hard drive has just called it quits,
And its innards are now on the fritz.
So I'll stuff some C-4
In the CD-ROM drawer
And I'll blow that computer to bits.

Explicitness, said of a story,
Means it's graphically sexy or gory,
Which is also a sign
Of a limerick of mine.
(Out of space here—I'm terribly sorry!)

They come on the wind once again
And fall now and then with the rain.
Atmogenic examples
Include many samples
From mountains that cough their terrain.

Although "Vengeance is mine," said the Lord,
You're tied up in the back of my Ford.
As a dealer, you see,
You will answer to me,
While your prayers to the Lord are ignored.

I'll be faithful, my dear, I won't stray—
Let another guy lure me away.
But in truth, I must say
That another gal may;
Deep inside I suspect that I'm gay.

The terrorist threats still remain,
So at airports the stress is insane.
Every counterthreat measure
Reduces the pleasure
Once common when taking a plane.

As chess master, I'll fork your queen knightly
And pin her with bishop uprightly.
Two-pronged on her flank,
I'll attack her back rank
With slick moves that she cannot take lightly.

It's a word we don't say during Lent,
When for forty long days we repent
All our sins of commission
And suffer contrition.
It's reserved — for that Easter event.

To the prince, fair Rapunzel had called
From her prison cell tower, high walled.
She'd  loosened her hair
To be used as a stair
And was rescued—now totally bald.

A eudemon, I've long understood,
Doesn't act like a brute or a hood
Or a devil, malevolent.
It's kind and benevolent
And helpful—does nothing but good.

Educationally disadvantaged to some
Means you won't find good schools in a slum.
This unflattering term
May make liberals squirm
If they're asked, "Is that PC for dumb?"

I'm a fellow who finds no divinity
In the smell of unwashed masculinity,
So this prison is hell:
Dwelling three to a cell,
We're a trinity held in confinity.

Ad-similation is an ex-fect
Where an ad-fix, to sound more con-rect,
Being loath to ob-fend,
And con-rupting its end,
Hides ad-lusions you'd never sub-spect.

A Code Green can make staff go berserk,
Since it stands for some force-wielding jerk
(Maybe armed—we don't know),
Or a fire drill, though
When it's safe, it's "All clear—back to work."

"She is gorgeous. You can't pass this by.
You're a fool if you don't even try.
Get your mind off her curves,
And go work up some nerves."
He went up to her: "Hi. My game's Nuy."

On deck I bumped into the bos'n,
(I was blinded perhaps by the los'n);
After curses infernal
His reproof was paternal:
"At sea you must mind how you gos'n!"

Arara, the cockatoo bird,
Has a call, as you might have inferred,
That's exactly the same
As its palindrome name.
Rara avis just might be the word.

"Father John, the wrong freezer you've chosen.
I think you been given a hosin'.
I ain't very pleased —
All these fish should be freezed!"
"Yes, though many are cold, few are frozen."

With my gold lamé suit, this pink brooch
Is above and beyond all reproach.
You can't criticise me;
I've a style guru, see?
(You should criticize him — he's my coach.)

Oh, he knows how to write and compose
Lovely music, and poems, and prose.
He's been active for years,
But won't quit—have no fears.
The Anonymous oeuvre just grows!

"The crazies," remarked John McCain,
"Are supporting The Donald — insane!
The man's egocentricity
And love of publicity
Rational people disdain."

"Without recognition," I fumed,
"My explorers club membership's doomed."
Then I hit on a scheme
For attaining my dream:
Dr. Livingston's name I assumed.

This verse would delight a collator:
Its line order couldn't be straighter.
With the middle bit here
It's sequentially clear,
With this line at the end coming later.

Arizona is shocking the nation
With new laws to control immigration.
If your skin is light brown,
Don't be roaming around
Without adequate documentation.

In my biga I ride through the park.
My two steeds pull in daylight or dark.
As I ride in my chariot,
The awed proletariat
Catch pennies I toss as a lark.

The belittling I took made me sick.
I was made to feel small, like my pick.
Though mine's smaller than most,
Of one fact I can boast:
Small-pick pickers can pick twice as quick.

DDT was a chemical sprayed
Onto crops in the fifties. It stayed
In the water and soil,
Turning eggshells to foil,
Until banned after Carson's crusade.

In the real estate world you should heed
All the laws that pertain to your need.
One document's vital:
A good chain of title—
A record of transfers by deed.

Huntley Meadows turns Thulian pink
When its forest floor, up from the brink
Of a wetland, is snug
Pentapetalous rug:
Eastern spring beauties, blooming in sync.

The day I first picked up a razor,
I took off my private-school blazer —
That boyish serge jacket.
I just couldn't hack it . . .
Lapels cut so crisp, as by laser.

For a meal in a class all its own,
Try this rib steak sliced clean of its bone:
Entrecote, lightly broiled
(Lose the pink and it's spoiled).
King of entrees, it's hard to dethrone.

In that freezing cold bay, named for Baffin,
Linger codfish to stick a sharp gaff in.
But be careful, not bold;
Once an Eskimo rolled,
And his gaffe got him featured on Laugh-In.

My accountant is simply the best;
He works hard on my books, I attest.
When my debits and credits
Need criminous edits,
There's never a break or a rest.

His message, as written, was cryptical,
Its meaning elusive, elliptical.
I at last understood
That it said the sun would
Soon be hidden—the news was ecliptical.

Though he drinks and he smells like a brewery,
Joe's an old-fashioned guy—with his druery.
Yes, he's gray-haired and portly,
But his dating is courtly.
Hear his druery vouch for his truery!

If you shake a small cinnamon tree,
Try to break only thinner twigs free.
You can make, with their inner
Bark, cake for your dinner—
No fake, it's a winner for me!

In the olden days, cold-water flats
Weren't uncommon, as rentier rats
Wouldn't pay for hot water
As much as they oughter.
Amenity enmity, that's.

Dear Ms White: I have reason to doubt you.
I hear so many stories about you!
I don't mean to indict you,
But I must disinvite you,
Though my  bash won't be smashing without you.

"The latrine in this barrack's among
The most filthy I've seen—splashed with dung.
It's so dungy, so soiled!"
I exclaimed as I boiled.
"Where's the sergeant? I'll have the bum hung!"

Mom and Dad say my boyfriend is hirable:
"At his labors, he's nearly untirable,
And his smile gets five stars.
It's a help selling cars.
As a salesman your guy is desirable."

The duty on shipping fromage
Was levied at Bourg-de-Péage.
The Isère gently rolls
Through this "Town of the Tolls",
Where you might want to make a portage.

The Germans gave Shirley the slip
Off the prow of the Lollypop Ship.
At the radar, she pouted;
The admiral shouted,
"Hey Temple, enough of your blip!"

A Japanese lassie called Cassie
With a yen in Iran for a lassi
(A drink of cold curds)
Heard the following words:
"No whey! You must pay an abassi."

Her casual interest tickles;
She experiments. Vinegar trickles
Into veggie-filled jars.
Unlike county-fair stars,
She's a dilettante, dabbling in pickles.

This stuff's worth at least twenty-one bob,
So a guinea is fair—just the job.
And two hundred and fifty-
Two pence sounds quite nifty:
A pound and a shilling—no prob!

"I've explored every cupboard and drawer,
And it can't have just dropped on the floor,"
The webserver frowned.
"I've searched all around,
But that page is not found — 404."

With a therapist acting as guide,
Has this couple put problems aside?
The techniques they've employed—
Holding hands, reading Freud—
Haven't worked. He's a Jekyll and Hyde!

The ear of a deer's a deer's ear.
But it's queer — there's an herb that comes near
To a deer's aural look,
Yet will ne'er be mistook,
Since it grows just in dirt, not on deer.

A CUSIP's a number that ranks
In the highest esteem at the banks,
When all of their charts
And other black arts,
Say sell this (and not that) as it tanks.

My verse has an anapest groove
And an ear-catching rhyme so that you've
Got to give your attention.
(I guess I should mention
That approbate means to approve.)

I consulted Doc Spock and he said,
"So your son cannot breathe—guess he's dead."
I answered, "The lad
Has been screaming like mad!"
"Out of breath, then! Next time, use your head!"

The aged prof's concentration? Intense,
And his love of the classics? Immense.
Though his paycheck is thin,
He remarks with a grin,
"The old word and its sentence compense."

There are sources of flavor cooks prize
In the brown bits of onion that fries;
In potatoes chefs heat,
Crispy crumbs that taste sweet —
Comes from sugars that caramelize!

Do take pity on aged Sir Dwight.
Go easy on him; he's not right.
He, when jousting last May,
Held his lance the wrong way.
Yes, go gently on Dwight, that good knight.

A fellow with home-buyer's lust
Told his neighborhood banker, "I must
Get a place of my own.
What I need is a loan."
What he got was a nice deed of trust.

"Roger's all mouth, no trousers," she said.
"Wish 'down there' was as big as his head.
When he gave me a peek,
Well, it just made me shriek—
That's with laughter, not lust for his bed."

Resurrectionists think it's a quirk
That I'd much rather bishop or burke.
Good cadavers, I've found,
Should be smothered or drowned;
Disinterment is such dirty work.

The blue ice that shattered our ceiling
Left a hole, stains and stench — we're still reeling.
Local press got the scoop:
"Airline leaks frozen poop,
But won't pay so the family's appealing."

Where's my horn? I am all in a panic!
My dance band will cross the Atlantic
By Thursday, I think,
If the ship doesn't sink.
(Never happen!  We're on the Titanic.)

His contemptibility shows in his dealing —
He's lying and cheating and stealing.
He won't care if you're hurt
By the loss of your shirt.
He has neither compassion nor feeling.

Anapestic? My favorite meter.
Like the name Antoinette—nothing sweeter.
But I won't be a lemming.
I ignore T-A-M-ing,
Though I'm barred from the gate by Saint Peter.

"Since we all know that Coke is crapola,"
Observes the Northumbrian Nola,
"That soda man's numbing-
ly dumb if he's coming
To Newcastle carrying cola."

You asked for an antibiotic,
But your pharmacist's so idiotic!
That prescription you chugged
Left you spacey and drugged—
You mistakenly took a narcotic.

Though lungless and "shapeless," they thrive
(Where it's humid) in trees. There were five
Kinds of tree salamander;
Now six, climbing, meander
And skitter. Let's hope they survive.

"These designs have excessive adorableness.
For my quarters I favor ignorableness,
With decor that is plain.
In the main," explained Jane,
"They're just more of this artist's deplorableness."

Little Timmy is cranky and cross,
And Thanksgiving, he thinks, is a loss.
But Sis thinks he's jerky
Refusing his turkey
When served without cranberry sauce.

At the pool club, they've boosted my dues
Just to upgrade the shuffleboard cues.
"Lighter stick, smoother swivel"—
Someone bought all that drivel.
It's an add-on—no way to refuse.

I'm full as a goog in Bilbao,
Eatin' pintxos while bar-hoppin'. How
'Bout that shiny ol' Guggenheim!
'Sfabulous lookin'. I'm
Due más cerveza 'bout now...

"I shall build us an X-foot high wall
And make Mexico pay for it all!"
What D. Trump did not mention?
They'll build ladders (extension)
X feet, plus an inch or two, tall.

"May I ask, 'What's the charge,' Sgt. Neff?"
Asked the pulled-over driver named Jeff.
"Well, two miles to your rear
Your wife exited." "Queer,
But thank God. I just thought I'd gone deaf."

"You impress me by doing what's hard;
You surpass all the rest by a yard!
Your ability's great—
Is your skill just innate?"
"Nope, just practice, more practicing, pard."

Human life: did some mastermind weave it?
It was God! (Or so Christians conceive it.)
I don't offer impedance
To innocent credence,
But me, I don't Adam and Eve it.

At a food and drink contest in Ono,
The champ, dressed in bib and kimono,
Quickly stopped, dropped a chop stick,
Then hopped and flopped cropsick;
To eat in excess is a no-no.

I'm just crazy for daisies, aren't you?
They're so calming, and beautiful too.
In my window-sill box I
Have plenty of ox-eye —
I swear on my bozzoms it's true!

On command from some Taliban bugger,
Without batting an eye soldiers plug her!
Get me next to these guys
And when I'm batting eyes,
It'll be with a Louisville Slugger.

Aperitifs are the drinks meant to whet
Diners' appetites, yet if they get
One more drink than they should
Before dinner—not good!
Their appetizers are headaches, I'll bet.

To resolve GI system's disquiet
Folks eliminate foods from their diet.
(Patient numbers, it's noted,
Get progressively bloated.)
Food intolerance? Yield, don't defy it.

I munch on a carrot, a radish,
And bean sprouts while feeling quite baddish.
I'm craving high-cal,
But that beautiful gal
Dates no fat guys.  I'll shoot for just fattish.

Sixty years he performed on the stage;
Still admired, his comments are sage.
Now a mentor at last
And a link to the past,
He's a doyen, respected in age.

I've heard that in Germany there's a
New cheese that's quite creamy, yet shares a
Formaggio thrust
With its white fromage crust —
Cambozola: a composite Käse.

Cephaloridine ain't a narcotic,
But a broad-spectrum antibiotic.
It works like a snap
For a case of the clap
And for maladies rare and exotic.

Mr. Sobek, a greedy historian,
Insured and then torched his DeLorean;
He extinguished his smile
Using crocodile guile,
And his tears were, of course, archosaurian.

Went to Mass in a nauseous condition.
Got worse, and foresaw evomition.
I fled the processional,
Found a confessional,
Ejected an Act of Contrition.

He's a creep with a high, whiny voice,
But he's driving a classic Rolls-Royce.
I'm a baritone bloke,
And I'm handsome—but broke.
Can you guess who's the gold digger's choice?

Your immune system couldn't be shrewder:
I'm its agent—a clever colluder.
An amboceptor, I,
Having formed a good tie
With a complement, kill the intruder.

Said the ape, "I have sharpened my ape claws:
With these end-of-my-toes, in-great-shape claws,
I'll escape late today!"
Sneered the zookeeper, "Nay!
You've got nails; there's no way they're escape claws."

My brother's defense team?  They called me
As a character witness, which stalled me
When taking the stand,
'Cause I thought of, off-hand,
Nothing good.  All my life, he's appalled me.

It takes fuel to coat iron with zinc,
Fire clay, or make plastic.  We think
That a "green" graphite basin
Should take pride of place in
Our bathroom: our own carbon sink.

Acetylcysteine's a good drug to clear
Out the mucus from lungs, when severe.
Just inhale some of this
For some free-breathing bliss,
And we'll cheer that you're here one more year.

Hungry, looking for catfish to kill,
The tall shoebill remained very still.
Then he rapidly struck,
Saying, "Boy, I'm in luck!
This fish is just right: fits the bill."

You're a shirt lifter, that's what they think:
Those two guys who just gave you a wink.
Though your camp shirt is gay
In a colourful way,
I must say: rue the day you chose pink!

What a backslapping person is Jack!
He is constantly whacking my back:
Acting jovial, hearty —
Too hard.  At your party
He hit me; I heard something crack.

Clerks at 7-11 are curt
To the hairy-backed, big-bellied Burt.
"Oh, for God's sake," one snapped.
"Dude, you've got to adapt,
And conformably throw on a shirt!"

A thief lives amongst us, you know.
She's with us wherever we go.
Our dearest sweet girl's
More precious than pearls.
She stole both our hearts long ago.

I'll detin this old can in a wink —
Tin's worth more than the steel, so I think.
And if tin I get off it
That gives me more profit
Than galvanised (coated with zinc).

We're beaverish, dogged and ferrety,
Pursuing and capturing verity.
These gems that we polish
Are honed to demolish
All ignorance into posterity.

What's a corneum? Layer of skin,
On the outside (not middle or in-).
Now please be advised
That it's keratinized,
Dead or peeling, sloughed off in flakes thin.

Chinese art's in my heart when I say
Your new bed's facing quite the wrong way.
Realign it so feet
Face the south, and you'll meet
The good fortune that rests with feng shui.

Excuse me, sir, please do not fuss;
This is customs, and I must excuss
All your luggage: go through it.
Been smuggling sir? Knew it:
Here's contraband ... seized. Off the bus!

When an advocate pleads any cause,
He occasionally clutches at straws.
An inferior sort
In superior court
May contort (that's his forte) silly laws.

The armor they wore when they sparred
Was for keeping their biceps unscarred.
Every knight in a tussle
Protected that muscle
By wearing a metal brassard.

Once I looked at the wealthy and yearned
For a life less banausic, but learned
That because I've no trust fund,
It's sad, but I must fund
My lifestyle with what I have earned.

Two weeks prior, when darkness held sway,
We heard wolves, with no howl held at bay.
If their howlings delight
When the moon fulls tonight,
We will hold that that myth is for play.

When I knocked, called "What's up?" I'm confessin',
I heard wrong, but I learned me a lesson.
Walked inside  thinkin', "She's
Writin' postcards." But Geez!
She was naked and she was a-dressin'.

The chores I complete 'round the house
Are all done with no gripe and no grouse.
With intention to please,
I am happy when these
Are so  favorably passed by my spouse.

Deposit (direct) is a must!
It's a transfer of funds that I trust.
Automatic, secure,
It can help to ensure
That your bank account never goes bust.

Big Ben watches while bobbies patrol
Where the ranks of swank bank gents all stroll.
The Embankment now hems in
The flanks of the Thames in
Old haunts of Toad, Ratty and Mole.

I took my anatomy final.
My area? Cerebrospinal;
I mixed up the nerves
And the functions each serves
(But I did very well in vaginal).

A blotter's a rustler who steals
And then alters the brand that reveals
Who the real owner is—
In the cow-stealing biz
He'll be thieving 'til somebody squeals.

Alcaligenes: found in the soil, it
Is in water, but not when you boil it.
You can take a chance, but
If it lives in your gut,
This bacillus will possibly spoil it.

On the roof, Tim, you lie, lazy jerk—
And don't tell me your climb there was "work"!
Though you've energy of position,
You're lacking ambition:
It's energy of motion you shirk!

DNA in your chromosomes dwells,
In the nuclei, deep in your cells.
Have you Papa's blue eyes?
Your great-grandmother's thighs?
Cheeks that swell? Well, it's breeding that tells.

My sister once asked, "What's a cyst?"
So I gave her the general gist:
"An old word for this blister
Is cystis, dear sister,
Like your face." Then my nose met her fist.

I insulted my barber one day,
And soon had the devil to pay.
The man butchered my hair;
That's a rug, now, up there.
I call it my "devil toupee."

"We're engaged, Dad, and words cannot say
Just how much we're in love.  The big day
Is in June of next year.
Will you stand by me?"  "Dear,
With a tear I will give you away."

If you're with a Scots lass around noon
And look up and you see the full moon,
In surprise you'd say, "Love,
There's the moon up above!"
She'd say, "Nae say 'above', say 'aboon'."

When chromium's chromous, its fate
Is to have a less oxidised state
Than the highly charged chromic
That gives the Suomic
(Read: "Finnish") of chromium plate.

A database tactic of geeks
Was avoiding excessive disk seeks.
With an index or key
It was easy (you see):
Direct access —  the best of techniques.

A sociable weaver twit-twitters,
Talking all of the time as it flitters
And adds to a nest
Where huge colonies rest.
(Youngsters work as their mama's best sitters.)

Your favourableness, that is, suitability,
(And I say this with zero hostility)
Is not right for my scheme —
You have dragged down the team
And reduced its required agility.

When the high, cloudless sky is ablaze
And no fronts mar the forecast for days,
Then the weatherman's topic
Is called barotropic:
The atmosphere's smooth as a glaze.

Girls' best friends are the diamonds, and
We've all seen 'em in Marilyn's hand.
It is carbon, or C
(As in cells of her knee),
Like in graphite, or coal, understand?

The apparat clearly is not
The best place for launching a plot.
One should never forget
If the Duma says nyet
Then the plotter will likely get shot.

A gammadion cross marks our door:
A vile swastika — hatred hardcore,
Most accursed of brands,
Scrawled by odious hands.
"Pass it over," you counsel? No more!

When God was designing the nose,
The position He finally chose
Was smack dab in the middle.
The reason's no riddle:
It's the scenter, so that's where it goes.

"Don't cast your aspersions maligningly
'Cause Sue's digging for water coal-miningly.
Just bring to the house
A smart fellow who'll dowse.
That will work," Uncle Klaus said, diviningly.

Financing this mansion is iffy,
But the neighborhood's tranquil and spiffy.
Its resplendent appeal
Says "Let's work out a deal."
We could cut you a check in a jiffy.

No reward for the aged, one fears:
Will we live till the time it appears
If, as some reports vow,
Taxing may  begin now,
But most benefits won't for four years?

Logicians are apt to object
To a "begging the question" defect.
In a circular proof,
It's a logical goof
That assumes propositions correct.

She sat scared in her cell. It was black,
And not one ray of light pierced a crack.
It was black as the Earl
Of Hell's waistcoat; the girl
Let loose tears that could not be held back.

A currycomb's used on a horse
By a groom, as a matter of course,
And not, as you'd feel,
At an Indian meal
To strain out the meat from the sauce.

Authoritatively he spoke,
Commanding us: "Throw off your yoke!
Make the logical choice,
And don't follow one voice!"
So we listened and forced him to choke.

I'm in love! Discodactylous Rose
Has these small sucking disks on her toes.
And what makes this appealing?
She paces the ceiling
While slowly removing her clothes.

As our sail from New London takes shape,
We head eastabout, rounding the Cape.
Then it's north straight to Maine
Just for lobster. Insane?
Not at all: it's the perfect escape.

Starting dope was a major mistake;
Such a habit ain't easy to break.
If I've learned just one fact,
It's a breeze to contract,
But a major commitment to shake.

A for effort, in grade school, can mean a
Gold star for Theresa or Tina.
But Bush, on a lark,
Gave Alberto this mark
And gave Brownie points during Katrina.

In our village they laid on the power.
Each tent got a hot and cold shower.
Then Faisal's whole clan,
Ninety camels, and Gran
All moved in. Now it's hell in the douar.

He's a cracksman well known in this town.
"Selling drugs?" queried I with a frown.
"Or perhaps a crack shot?
Or his joke-telling's hot?"
No, his safe-cracking's brought him renown.

I grow ancient; I hate as I age
That my body is trapped in time's cage.
I find it enraging,
This process of aging;
I, hearing Death's page, disengage.

I grow older; I love as I age
That a lifetime of thought's made me sage.
There is no point in waging
A war against aging;
I, hearing Death's page, reengage.

Her story intends to mislead
And to cover a devious deed.
This Iranian spy's
Donned a clever disguise
In Dumbarton—her burqa is tweed.

You want healthy? This cheese really rocks!
For nutrition, you check every box:
There's no lactose, soy, gluten;
The doctors are rootin'
For cholesterol-free Blissful Blocks!

I once met a dell named Adele,
A wench with a horrible smell.
When I said to this vagrant,
"P-U, you are fragrant."
She countered, "It's your smell that's fell!"

Twelve freshmen signed up for the test,
And the dozenth, the last, came out best.
She was faultless; her score
Was 100. What's more,
She was finished before all the rest.

I spotted my first one this week—
A black woodpecker, hefty of beak.
It may look like they are,
But they're not a red car:
They're a species, distinct and unique.

"As an adjective," lectured my pa,
"All-in-one could describe your dear ma:
Cook and nurse and chauffeur,
Household entrepreneur.
As a noun, it's her girdle and bra."

While flipping a hamburger patty,
Poor Mitzi went quietly batty —
Said, "French fries with that?"
As she deep-fried a rat.
"There's no difference; it all ends up fatty."

A bat is a curious stick:
There's a thin end, and one that is thick.
It is used to propel
A small ball as yells swell.
Do it right and you'll score—that's the trick!

An infection may well be chaotic,
And its treatment may be quite exotic,
But the neighborhood doc
Will rely on his stock
Of a broad-spectrum antibiotic.

A calf is the young of a moose,
And a gosling, a juvenile goose.
But Persephone wonders
If each bolt of thunder's
A brother, the offspring of Zeus.

With the term bitch's Christmas, I mean
What the heteros call Halloween.
They don't know that I'm gay,
So it's just on that day
That I get to go out as a queen.

I'm a part of a vigorous group;
We all work to remain in the loop.
Our communitive zeal
Is so actively real
That we're feeling like chicks in a coop.

At calligraphy Donald was best.
With his flourishes, all could attest
That his script was exact
(Which concealed the sad fact
That his prose lacked the skill of the rest).

I saw Spider-Man try to escape on
A castrated rooster, with tape on
Its feathers, for grip,
And his reason was flip:
"I heard Superman flies with a capon."

Though young Mike is a tearaway tyke,
For his birthday, Dad got him a bike;
Now he cycles at speed
And he's soon in the lead—
It beats riding that rusty old trike!

My car isn't nippy or neat.
It's got holes in the vinyl bench seat,
And no console to stash
All my stuff, so the trash
Ends up rolling around at my feet.

"My blind date, is she hot?" "Well, not quite,
But she's babish," they told me, contrite.
It was true. At the dance,
Penny peed in her pants,
And revealed that she can't read or write.

That plain model who posed for my etching?
To say that she's cute would be stretching
Credulity, yet
What I want she will get
And bring back to me.  Boy, is she fetching!

I look down, as my ankle is hurting,
And I notice the blood that is spurting.
It's a horrible sight!
Mom's perturbed and uptight—
I say, "Yes, it's a bit disconcerting."

On TV was the place they found fame,
Though we note, they don't share the same name.
But I know you won't quibble,
Thwarting Hall, and then Dibble,
We find Bilko and Top Cat the same.

The anonymous man I must thank
Can collect his reward at the bank.
Though I've signed, as you see,
I don't name a payee,
So this cheque's an endorsement in blank.

It's a characteristic of man,
Which a good anthropologist can
(After study with care)
Class as nice wavy hair —
Cymotrichous — part of God's plan.

Lest the priests, who deliver God's speeches,
Bear iniquity—Exodus teaches—
They need cloth of a size
To conceal loins and thighs;
They and theirs shall forever wear breeches.

The canoeist cried, 'Oh, what a bore!
Just to paddle upstream's such a chore.'
So he dug deep to aft,
Turning round his frail craft
To drift down, his poor oar-arm quite sore.

"No ID when she happened to die.
A corpse derelicti," said I.
"I've done this cadaver,
You cut-up — you have her."
"Rest in pieces," his only reply.

In art school you're likely to learn
Of the use of what's called anti-cerne.
Space where canvas shows white
Between fields that are bright
Forms a line that no fauvist would spurn.

If your eyelashes, dear, get too fluttery,
That's not wise.  It can signify sluttery.
If your flutter's not brief,
You may come to some grief,
As male thoughts become tawdry and guttery.

When you write, there are ways to combine
Certain thoughts in a series. You'll shine,
Keeping syntax correct,
When you choose to connect,
With conjunctive words falling in line.

A particular kind of accrual
Can be used in your pension pursual.
Today you can borrow
For the costs of tomorrow.
Each year there will be a renewal.

Chinese yam, as the Chinese attest,
Eases coughs, and will help you digest
While it lowers blood fat —
And it's food! Fancy that!
In the US, some call it a pest.

I was buzzed by a low-flying bird,
So I buzzed for my technical nerd.
He then buzzed 'round his shop;
Buzzed a drone up to drop
That old buzzard (who wasn't deterred).

I booked an exclusive hotel,
Called elitist and choosy as hell.
Still, how posh could it be
If it rented to me?
I canceled—low-class clientele.

My physicist roommate denied
That his pet was a problem: he cried,
"Is his poop really there?"
I replied, "I don't care—
Just put Schrödinger's cat box outside!"

You're a moth larva out in Tibet?
Becoming a mummy's a threat.
Certain fungi intrude;
They will use you as food
And then sprout—a macabre duet.

An astronaut circles the Earth
In a vessel of limited girth;
When he presses his face
To the window, sees space
Simply dwarfing the place of his birth.

You won't give me my props.  You neglect
To appreciate me.  I object.
I am due recognition.
Your thoughtless omission
Just shows you don't show me respect.

Who did something to something just then?
Of those two, was it Bill, was it Ben?
As we all are agreed
That it wasn't the weed,
It was one of those Flower Pot Men.

I'm right at the end of my tether;
I'm stuck in a storm I can't weather:
I was using some glue,
(Haven't you done it too?)
Now my fingers are bonded together.

Echocardiograms, using sound,
May contribute results that astound.
One example's detection
Of heartbeat ejection;
Its magnitude's easily found.

Pick some point on a circular face
As it's rolled on a linear base.
What's the shape of the path
You'll observe? Here's the math:
Curtate cycloids are curves that you'll trace.

I thank God for my cool fidget spinner.
As a stress-relief aid, it's a winner.
With its lobes and ball-bearing
Smooth movement, it's sparing
Me anxiousness waiting for dinner.

Brokeback Mountain's a film where two guys
Fell in love when away from the eyes
Of a world that shouts "CREEP!"
They did more than herd sheep...
In the closet they stayed with their lies.

For musicians, the octave is shown
By letters with primes or alone.
The note BBB
Is below middle C
By two octaves and one semitone.

"Chalcid flies!" cried an arthropod critic.
"Their habits are damned parasitic:
They lay eggs neath prey's hide;
Larvae dine from inside.
Can't deny—that sounds awfully pruritic!"

Indians bathe in their rivers a lot,
So they carefully tread on the ghat:
These broad steps at the bank
Take them down when they're rank,
Then back up when they've cleaned every spot.

When a move by a foe causes stress,
Like exposing your sins in the press,
The countermove's clear:
You should just disappear—
Change your phone number, name, and address.

The childbirth was not going well,
Since the kid was enormous as hell.
"Grab the chainsaw!" Doc cried.
With her eyes growing wide,
Mom delivered a loud, healthy yell.

Pics I place in my digital scanner
Are transformed in a pixelized manner
To a bitmap or tiff
Or a jpeg or gif,
To be used for a book or a banner.

Luigi emitted a groan:
"This is nobody's fault but my own.
I'm thoroughly beaten.
I shouldn't have eaten
That fifth pepperoni calzone."

I saw Len, was astonished, and then
Did a double take—looking again.
"Len, you've lost lots of weight."
I exclaimed, "You look great.
Give me ten!" Len appended: "Amen!"

A monk at a Carmelite priory
Kept an itemized day-to-day diary.
He tracked, without rest,
All the things he possessed,
Then confessed to a life of acquiry.

Although some of his words are obscure,
Shakespeare's language will always endure.
Let us praise as we gaze;
We can learn from his plays
That composture's a word for "manure."

If you fret about damage testicular,
Or the nearby appendage vermicular,
Get a cup (or a box)
You can stuff down your jocks.
It's more cup-shaped than socks: it's calicular.

My derby's a place where my cat
Likes to sit, and it's now a bit flat.
So I'll take it on down
To a man in our town
Who's an expert at blocking a hat.

He was heir to the Austrian crown.
Archduke Franz, on a tour, was shot down
By a Serbian band
That was called the Black Hand.
World War I sadly marks his renown.

By providing amusement for folks,
Sue's amusive. She likes telling jokes.
She can sing, she can dance.
If you give her a chance,
Shades of Carol Burnett she evokes.

A wee, timorous beastie? No way!
He's a sinewy chap from Bombay.
This Indian laddie
Would make a fine caddy:
A bheestie totes water all day.

Caveman Dana was brought to his knees
By his latest invention: a cheese
From the milk of great woolly
She-mammoths. He'd fully
Expected to milk them with ease!

I consider, with deep desperation,
The drop in our frog population.
Global warming, I fear,
Caused their die-off this year—
For those species, a dire decimation.

In the state of Ogun, in a hut
Watching bugs, here I sit on my butt.
In Abeokuta,
The insects have scuta
(Like everywhere else, but so what?).

Life is plodding along, that is plain;
I like things as they are, in the main.
Things aren't bad — they're OK,
About average, I'd say.
Fair to middling — I cannot complain.

It wasn't our best, that away game
We played; it was just an okay game
For us.  As for them,
It was one mighty gem.
Give them credit for bringing their A game.

"As I pulled on my clothes," said Louise,
"Chuck put snow in my shoe—what a tease!
Filled my left chukka boot;
When I screamed, he was cute;
Said, 'At least you won't freeze to your knees!' "

While taking attendance, Miss Haim,
Our strict teacher, would call out each name.
If we didn't say "present,"
Our day wasn't pleasant—
We'd sit in the corner in shame.

My gall bladder's filling with stones.
When one passes, you'll hear all my groans;
And if one should obstruct
In my biliary duct,
I'll be jaundiced in yellow-green tones.

If in law, the old rules don't apply,
Or in math, a new method you try,
There once was a word
That is now seldom heard.
It was aliter; wave it goodbye.

Trading many a truculent glare,
They were rivals (as all were aware)
And eternally galled.
So a meeting was called
With the purpose of clearing the air.

Any time of the day, it's my ready cab.
I tell friends that it's surely a medi-cab —
I'm so healthy and strong
Since this job came along.
Take my bicycle taxi, or pedicab.

A contented anonymuncule,
I write frivolous verse like a fool.
Not for me approbation
Or the standing ovation—
Yet the critics are barely less cruel…

My prices, I promise, are cut-rate.
The cost seems exorbitant, but, wait!
It isn't a racket—
Right here in my jacket,
I've only high-quality smut, mate.

My euphoria led to despair
On a back breaker trip — don't know where.
Sounds and colors were busy.
I was anxious and dizzy.
Now I'm home.  The Lord's answered my prayer.

Old Sledge, Seven Up, and All-Fours
Are all names for a game played indoors.
If your card's low or high
You're a lucky-ish guy;
Get the jack, and a victory's yours.

When the French want to find out the lay
Of the land, to decide yea or nay,
Where an Englishman might
Just try flying a kite,
They will send up a ballon d'essai.

Our colloquium—guess I should mention—
Was a most well-attended convention.
As its theme, this packed meeting
Had: "Was Einstein Cheating?"
So it garnered a lot of attention.

In the backcourt, you're farther away
From the tennis court's net when you play,
So the ball's hit, of course,
Using maximum force;
Tennis victories happen that way.

If some of his speeches you'd scrutinized,
You'd have seen that they're all platitudinized.
He thought he was slick
When he laid it on thick:
Made me sick how that hick attitudinized.

I've heard that the Caucasoid's white,
Having features and skin that are light.
And I'm told that a caucus
Of skinheads is raucous,
Asserting their power and might.

At the drive-in, a heroine's scream
Was unseen through glass murky with steam.
Lost in lust's lewd embrace,
Teens were smooching apace—
A typical passion pit theme.

Your conduct has cast disrespect
On this firm, and we wholly object.
Our pact? Null and void;
You're no longer employed.
The defeasance has taken effect.

Babes are nubile, half-dressed and they're free,
And the beer comes in barrels; you'll see.
Sure, it's costly, but wait:
Dad and state pay the freight.
Campus living's the lifestyle for me.

The large advert was striking and bold:
"To promote our new swimwear range 'Gold',
We are looking to coach
Those with hands-on approach."
I applied, but my hands were too cold.

Ere its essence was labeled Platonic,
.cinodehportsuob saw gnitirw keerG
Archetypewriters learned
;denruter egairrac eht woH
Ever since, we have been less laconic.

Jack's an active, dynamical guy —
Has of ergs an abnormal supply.
He does all things with vigor,
Though some people snigger,
"Too fast on the trigger!" Not I.

Black powder's a sainthood-defeater,
A sin held within a repeater.
Its white demon breath
Is an omen of death,
And the sulfur and smoke assault Peter.

A train-set designer had dreams
Of constructing two trestles with beams
That would hold his own weight,
But he ate and he ate.
Got too big for his bridges, it seems.

There's a word for a personal maid
From a character Beaumont portrayed
(Or perhaps it was Fletcher?)—
A lady's young fetcher,
Named Abigail, offering aid.

The commentary Callahan wrote
On my thesis was more than a note.
Though he quoted the sages
For twenty-six pages,
His arguments all missed the boat.

In some one-shot religions, it's said,
There is heaven or hell once you're dead.
But in caste-centered sects
The believer expects
Several do-over lifetimes instead.

What a delicate bloom! How replete
With aroma—no others compete!
How deserving of fame!
But by no other name
Would the burnet rose smell quite as sweet.

A corbeille of apples and pears,
A corbeille of wishes and prayers,
A tisket, a tasket,
A corbeille's a basket
I wish I could fill with my cares.

The apricot's fruit that I spread
As a flavorful jam on my bread.
And a firm apricot
I'll enjoy quite a lot,
But I'd much rather sleep in a bed.

Digging holes is my prime occcupation.
Then I fill in each new excavation.
Once I tamp down the ground,
It looks perfectly sound,
Undisturbed (pending some exhumation).

One way Parliament battled the Hun
Was an Act that some soon wished undone:
With Lloyd George at the helm,
The Defence of the Realm
Act called "Time" on the beer drinkers' fun.

Driven cattle you're herding don't stay
Rounded up; and some cows go astray,
Often prompting a race
Vexing cowboys who chase
Every dogie, so none gets away.

I'm in love with this store near the lake where
There's all sorts of wonderful bakeware,
Fulfilling my wishes
For casserole dishes
And cookie sheets, roasters, and cakeware.

When my boss has insulted my mom,
And I need to respond with aplomb,
I disdain to use nasty-isms,
Favoring asteisms:
Polite ways of dropping a bomb.

Oh, horrors!  Alas and alack!
My monarch's gone bad, turning black.
Though I sure did my best,
That most unwanted guest,
Old black death, stabbed my rex in the back!

I hope I will not have to flash a
Lot of cash when I drive through Circassia.
The place I'll be in,
I suspect, must have been
The domain of an Ottoman pasha.

To balance your life, every day
Equilibrize work time and play
Lest you be a dull boy.
Learn to stop and enjoy.
(No, the devil won't lead you astray.)

"More ale, sir!" The young drinker begs
For some wicked home brew from my kegs.
In his glass I saw crud
The dull color of mud
On the bottom. It's known as the dregs.

Sad to note, my dead goat's in a boat.
Got George angry; it shat in his moat.
On my goat I'd been doting;
Found 'er shot, bod a-floating;
George, hot, his goat got, got my goat.

Without me, clearly, nothing gets done
As it's through me all data must run.
From the memory I skip
To the CPU chip—
See the data bus zip like a gun.

In the year fourteen hundred and four,
There were many new worlds to explore,
But I'm sorry to say
That my atlas today
Doesn't show unmapped lands any more.

He awoke in his hospital bed
From a coma.  The first thing he said:
"Though I dreamed the idea
Of Jerry Garcia,
I'm grateful I'm back from the dead."

All the reds and the greens I reverse;
Due to gender my problem is worse.
When I'm at the paint shop,
Don't know blue from ker-plop;
It is acritochromacy's curse.

Are acorn cups used by a fairy
To milk cowslip-dew from a dairy?
No, they hang from the twig
Of an oak that is big
To keep acorns secure in mid-airy.

At life science, call me a whiz.
Asked by Teach what an Eskimo is,
I mulled, "Give me a minuit…
Hah! That's an Inuit!",
Acing that last oral quiz.

I am eager, my efforts unceasing
To succeed at the laundry I'm leasing.
At washing and rinsing
My talent's convincing —
But my ironing skills are decreasing.

In the frosty Siberian ground,
A Denisovan pinky was found.
Its genes have revealed
The truth it concealed:
Descendants, still roaming around.

In Virginia, US, are the fine
Blue Ridge Mountains, world-famed for a pine
Celebrated in song,
But, I fear, not for long —
Warming climate may make it resign!

"...And doctor, I guess I should mention:
I've formed a portentous intention.
I'm planning a homicide—
Both poppa- and momma-cide."
(It's time for a crisis intervention.)

If a monarch who's accident-prone
Takes a tumble while riding alone,
And he dies, with no heir,
Then the monarchy's where?
In abeyance: no king on the throne.

Gnathion: base of a jaw
(That thing that we all use to gnaw).
Its "G" is not sounded,
Which leaves some dumbfounded
Though gnaw is itself pronounced "naw".

What an angel she was, perched on high.
On her morals we all could rely.
But with Paul she's been ballin' —
That angel has fallen.
She's badly behaved with that guy.

"She appeared like a blonde apparition.
Now my heart is," sighed Art, "in remission."
Wearing awe on his sleeve,
He may nevermore leave
Bedazzlement's heightened condition.

"Your German-born girlfriend, dear Fred,
Is from Bonn. Keep her out of your bed!
With an accent like hers,"
So his father demurs,
"No bastard will know what she's said."

"You've disclaundered his life and his name,
And that action should bring you great shame.
Our image of Stalin,
It grieves me, has fallen.
For the war dead, our leader you blame?"

Burkina Faso: from France they were freed;
Now a nation with notable need,
They've no shore on the sea,
Plus a small GDP,
And a shortage of folks who can read.

When omnipotence flows from my soul,
All the cosmos within my control,
All of Heaven and Earth
Shall profess my great worth.
Almightiness:  that is my goal.

What are chalcogens? Here is the poop
On the elements making this group:
From oxygen (top)
Go down till you stop:
Livermorium—that's the whole scoop.

Macbeth would have Duncan's position,
Spilling blood for his vaulting ambition.
The sound of the bell
Is, for Duncan, a knell.
Fear Macduff, though; the thane holds suspicion.

Use investment for maximum clout.
Buy up all that you can; have no doubt.
When you see something good
In a business, you should
Not only buy in, but buy out!

I'll be darned if I'm trod underfoot
And I swear that a stitch as I cut
Won't stop my repair;
I will mend all this wear.
I'll be damned if on foot I'm not put.

In the old days, young lovers were sighin',
When to win a fair lass they were tryin'.
They would say, "What I prize
Is your lovely blue eyes
(Or your eyne, or perhaps even eyen)."

Nash was best as a gardener, Dale,
So to keep out of debt now, and jail,
As the cabbage price tumbles,
We must (despite grumbles)
Make sure we get Nash on the kale.

Though male cabbies make Gwendolyn wary,
Uber sends every Tom, Dick, or Harry,
And it makes her so mad
That her driver's a lad
Every time that she tries to hail Mary.

Father-lasher! I'm sure I'm not erring
When I say that this fish ain't no herring.
To the sculpin allied,
Out in Europe it's spied.
(Ha! I bet you had thought I was swearing!)

Dirt and dust by your nose hairs is caught,
And then once they've collected a lot,
 If it forms solid mass,
 It's a booger. Alas,
If it's liquid and runs, then it's not.

Want much more of the stuff you may need?
More food and more drink? Yes, indeed,
Not aware of the needy,
You're nothing but greedy.
Your life is all greed, man! Agreed?

The Daimler's luxurious feel
And the rest of its ritzy appeal
Are diminished, alas,
When its tankful of gas
Is worth more than the automobile!

To a choirboy Guy is compared;
He's angelic and sweet, golden-haired.
Guess the pastor was shocked
When the church he unlocked
And found Guy there with Gilda, both bared.

When we started discussing the deal,
He offered a bankerly spiel,
Saying interest, compounded,
Would leave me astounded.
I asked myself, "Is he for real?"

Ancient Greece, for important debates,
Used to send, from constituent states,
To a congress, some men
Called amphictyons, then
They'd return and report to their mates.

Nine puns failed to tickle my id.
(Perhaps all the assonants hid?)
But the very last one
Made me laugh (it was fun),
Which means only one pun in ten did.

What? Me, cynical? Surely you joke…
But don't think that your ego I'll stroke,
So you'd better wise up
Or I'll hand you a cup
Of my thoughts… You'll be sorry you spoke.

Some old doorbells ring faintly by twist
Of a handle with fingers and wrist.
The soft sound oft relates
That a visitor waits
At the door ... and perhaps for a tryst.

As for ambi-, I'd like to expound.
At the start, it means "both" or "around":
"How's the ambiance there?
Lots of noise filled the air
With ambiguous ambient sound."

Hear the consort this silvery morn
Play a concert that's mournful, forlorn.
Their breed's oboeish. Slowish,
They're reedy and lowish—
Cromornes (they're like shawms) in the dawn.

When you're lying in bed in a state,
Agrypnotic and hardly sedate,
Though your body is numb,
You find slumber won't come
And a long night awake is your fate.

Your horse is all restless, though why it
Should stay so: no reason. Just buy it
This gadget to close
Round the end of its nose.
Yes, a barnacle should keep it quiet.

Look at Eros, adorning the 'Dilly,
With his arrow that's aimed willy-nilly.
Where he buried his shaft
Had a meaning? We laughed.
Urban myths can be ever so silly.

What if sibilant English had been
Formed of letters cedilla and shin?
Every plural would frown
As an aggregate noun
In an esslessness fit for a queen.

It's a good thing my ceilings are high,
Mused Sir Oliver Pilkington-Pie,
Or I might bang my head,
Crack my skull, end up dead!
I'd not count it a blessing to die.

Tiny creatures, afraid of the light;
In your closet they hide, out of sight.
No frequenters of galleries,
These shy little calories
Sew your clothes ever tighter each night.

Small blood vessels — many are stored
In your corium, hidden, ignored.
That's essential, but no,
It's not beautiful, so,
Its location's skin-deep, thank the Lord.

The old lodge had been roofed with faux thatch,
And had facing bricks textured to match.
From our luxury coach,
As we made our approach,
What we saw made it look built from scratch.

The hot water flows, if I'm gentle.
The blinds won't go up, but my rent'll.
One neighbor's a strumpet,
One's learning the trumpet—
The joys of a life apartmental.

On those far rolling hills they're still farming;
This countryside view is so charming.
But on turning my head
I see townscapes instead,
And the rate of their spread is alarming.

"I, while trying to be more athletic,
Froze my toes—I'm, God knows, diabetic.
A cold rubber," cried Pete,
Could perhaps warm my feet."
"It's a substance, you fool, that's synthetic."

An armchair ride down at the track
Made me lose lots of money, alack.
Gee, that pony could run.
He quite easily won.
Taking first at that horse meet?  Big Mack.

The crosshairs can help with your aim;
Without them it's just not the same.
If you line up the hairs
On rabbits or bears,
You'll return to the lodge with more game.

Ask directions in Ireland, I fear
They may sound rather strange to your ear.
Someone's likely to say
In an eye-twinkling way,
"Sure I wouldn't be starting from here!"

When I moved to the country, I knew
I'd enjoy the more pastoral view,
Since the brickscape in town
Looked a little run-down
In the place where I'd lived hitherto.

To the missives, the Pope fastens two
Of his seals; then he's asked by the new
Internuncio, "What
Are those signets you've got?"
Answers Benedict, "Bullae for you!"

"Bloody Marys with vodka, cocaine,
And some meth for that mass in your brain?
Those are cocktails with drugs—
Just not ours," the doc shrugs.
"But they're sure gonna lessen the pain."

Carbofuran (Curater's one brand)
Is a pesticide currently banned
By a handful of nations:
Just small concentrations
Suffice to kill birds, understand?

Saint Amator's tale has a taint:
Does the Church need a bigamous saint?
Since most saints don't have any,
His two were too many,
Yelling, "Oh yes he is!" "No, he ain't!"

She was blushing, a beautiful bride;
An innocent virgin, untried.
Then after the wedding
Came bumping and bedding
To consummate vows made with pride.

At your urging—your urgent behest—
I've bequeathed your requested bequest.
Time will tell, I expect,
If my Will, in effect,
Works your will in the way you have guessed.

I've a habit I need to divulge
That has caused my abdominal bulge.
I'm addicted to sweets,
So I practice safe eats
And use condom mints when I indulge.

It was careless—a venial mistake.
She deserves, I insist, a fair shake;
You've overreacted.
She was drowsy, distracted,
When she sat on the president's cake.

Can presumption of privacy win
When the trend's that your "friends" are clued in?
If Facebook and Twitter
Are making you bitter,
Stop posting the news when you sin.

Oh, the eventide's dusk dims towards night;
Its shadows steal sharpness from sight.
With Helios low,
The crepusculine glow…
Oh, just shut up and turn on a light!

At Gettysburg weapons did rattle
In a very fierce Civil War battle.
'Twas eighteen-sixty-three
When one Robert E. Lee
Saw his men bravely die — not like cattle.

This critic's of minor repute;
His empathy's much too acute:
The awful soprano
Who shrieked through "È strano!"
He called "just minutely argute."

Kitty purrs at the head of my bed;
At the foot snorts my terrier, Fred.
To my right snores a whore,
To my left snores one more—
And the old ball and chain's in the shed.

The right to bear arms is such fun!
You'll always be safe with a gun.
You're never in danger
From mugger or stranger,
So shoot, people—get yourselves one!

If the pros and the cons that we weigh
Show no clear-cut advantage at play,
We're between black and white.
There's no wrong and no right
In the shades of these areas gray.

He enjoys shooting arrows, this gent.
(He loves archery, that's what I meant!)
His advice? "Keep it mellow,
And aim for the yellow—
And hope that your fletching's not bent."

A hand that is cupped (half a sphere)
And then placed just behind someone's ear
Is a signal to you
That you didn't get through:
"Please repeat that. I couldn't quite hear."

You claim to be high-class and tony.
Let's face it, my dear, you're a phony.
You say, "I've not been
Too well-off or too thin" —
Rather, too ostentatious and bony.

In my jeans pocket rides my old flip—
What a slingshot! Right size, solid grip.
I let fly at a crow,
And it's "Look out below!"
I'm complete with that flip on my hip.

My new anorak's oil-skinned: it's greasy
(Hence, water-repellent); it's fleecy
(All lined with soft wool);
And inside, it is full
Of fine goose-down (I'd say that it's geesey).

My stock market venture was lame,
And no winnings, alas, could I claim.
Turkey futures I tried,
But success was denied;
I could not get ahead of the game.

A reckoning makes a narration
Of expense, with a clear computation.
If your reckoning's Dutch,
There's no breakdown as such:
Just a total without the summation.

Microscopic, the diner I chose
Had an odd name: "No-Nucleus Joe's."
They make pizzas with flair,
But you can't eat them there.
It's akaryote place, I suppose.

Our crossbows betoken our might,
And you shiver, aquiver with fright.
With the arc of a bolt
Starts our bowmen's revolt—
Armed with quarrels, we're aiming to fight.

When they claimed that a camel ain't pretty,
They were tryin' too hard to sound witty.
So the beast got maligned
When they cruelly opined
It's a horse that's designed by committee.

'87 was when we would know
How the Bash Brothers legend might grow.
For Canseco/McGwire
Set the A.L. on fire;
As they say, they put on quite a show.

Conceptualism is smart:
Take a taxi, a bus, and a cart,
Hold your breath in abeyance,
And think: a conveyance.
Philosophy maybe — but art?

My Confederate flag on display
Meant to show Southern pride, but the way
Some have viewed it — they called me
A racist — appalled me.
I thought I best put it away.

You wanna do what with me?  Eek!
Your perversion has reached a new peak.
I regretted before;
Now you show even more?
You're as weird as all get out, you freak!

Those dents in the side of your head?
They're blunt trauma—or so the doc said.
Though they may look severe,
Had they gone ear to ear,
Then most likely you would have been dead.

Watch the whales of the wind lumber near,
So majestic and gray and austere.
Such leviathans fly,
Sweeping krill from the sky:
Their baleens make balloons disappear!

You like boating, but aren't a sailor?
Try the motorized skiff—Boston Whaler.
It's a nice little boat
That stays mostly afloat.
Just in case, keep a pail for a bailer.

Not too many will stand up and fight;
Be the voice for what matters, what's right.
Once, Ray Bradbury told
A tale, timeless and bold,
Against censoring words that ignite.

When frightened this creature will dive
Into brush, and that keeps it alive.
When it heads for the bush—
You'll see only its tush—
Thus do African duykerboks thrive.

Though far tinier, still, a bacillus
Resembles somewhat amaryllis.
It is spiky and long —
A bacterial Kong.
Some make Vitamin K, and some kill us.

The word dogtrick—its sound can evoke
Something sneaky, a practical joke,
One that's nasty and churlish
(Not cute, sweet, or girlish).
It's more of a poke than a stroke.

Tiny tents, weeny tent-pegs: at dawn
An encampment appears on our lawn.
The intruders advance:
They're an army of ants.
Fetch the mower: we'll soon test their brawn.

When a pompous and ponderous tank
Hit a gooseberry bush with a clank,
And its progress was dead,
It was then someone said:
"It's lost track, and a lot of its swank."

In the "tolerant" West it's the purse,
More than breeding, that makes one's class "worse"
Than the class of another.
Class structure — oh brother!
West or East, it's society's curse.

Our foremost (premier) bard's hot stuff.
SheilaB simply can't write enough.
In her garden she roams
Writing more five-line poems,
Every line of each lim up to snuff.

Its entablature seems to be Greek,
But the rest of this building's a freak,
'Cause no columns stand tall
(No pilasters at all),
So astylar's its style. Strange technique!

That's an anchor I've got on my face.
No, don't panic. It's not out of place.
With a beard such as this,
Any nautical miss
Would be pleased if her wake I should chase.

If a thing will occur before long,
That means soon. If I'm singing a song,
Before long (you can bet)
 There'll be someone upset,
Whose loud gong will be proof I've done wrong.

Dermatologists frown at your chin
And then cluck at your lip and your shin.
Simple pimples or cancer?
They'll give you the answer
You're itching to learn 'bout your skin.

Gawping girls who were dancing in pairs,
Bertie blinked. It's an action that scares:
A brunette caught his eye—
And the rest watched it fly
From her hand, and then roll down the stairs.

I'm not an adept chef or cook,
But some recipes I undertook
To cook turned out great—
Like the hot turkey plate,
Which I found in my cookery book!

When a whale has been beached, it is key
That we get the poor thing back to sea.
On the beach, it will die,
So the volunteers try
Daring rescues as shown on TV.

Badass Bogie, the actor, was class,
Both in rags or in tux, took no sass.
And that isn't all—
He had Lauren Bacall.
What a pair, what an act, what a gas!

Are your women with milk? Let them hide.
The Cu Sidh looks to catch them outside.
This dog  of a fairy
Is dark green and hairy,
And silent… yet won't be denied.

Out in Scotland, Sebastian's a birlyman.
Homophonically, too, he's a burly man.
He will arbitrate fights
While protecting folks' rights,
So it helps that he isn't a girly man.

Made with chitlins (from hogs) or with tripe,
Oddly named in a hybrid-type hype
Is the andouillette sausage,
A linguistical crossage.
For purists, it's reason to gripe.

Crème fraîche, a matured, thickened cream,
An ingredient held in esteem,
Can improve any meal.
In a sauce it's ideal,
Or added to soup it's supreme.

Acne Jeans! (Yeah, you heard right.) I'm guessing
I won't reach for these when I'm dressing.
They're of Swedish design
And, in truth, they look fine,
But that name deserves prompt reassessing.

In the physically fit revolutions,
Flat abs make such strong contributions.
For chances increased
Try consulting a priest.
They are specialists — seek ab-solutions.

"I am bearded," said Iris, "a freak!"
So she shaved fifty times in a week.
Now a high-powered laser
Has replaced her old razor —
What beauty! What softness! What cheek!

Here's an etiquette tip you can use.
Any restaurant or bar that you choose
Won't much care how you dress,
But one thing they will stress:
They expect you to show up in shoes.

The public won't back John McCain
'Cause Iraq is a mess?  You're insane!
Then again, what you hear —
An agenda — makes clear
That the press views success with disdain.

My barber cuts hair very well,
But I'm balding so much I would tell
Him I want a cost break
('Cause, how long can it take?)
But he'd say, "It's the search that's pure hell!"

I know the term digram to mean
Two letters successively seen,
Which letters, when found,
Denote a new sound
Like th in throughout or thirteen.

There's a beast fable: "'Hopper and Ant".
"Come and play," said the grasshopper. "Can't!
I must work," the ant said,
"Storing morsels of bread
For the winter, when foodstuffs are scant."

The ghost walks: it's father, to say
How mother and uncle betray;
Hamlet takes a "bare bodkin"
To escape from his odd kin —
But relents (and thus saves Shakespeare's play).

In molecule-clouds out in space,
Organic reactions take place.
Astrochemistry's rife
With precursors of life,
But evolves at a ponderous pace.

For your pay-per-click ads, this advice:
You'll entice with words laser-precise.
Returns not terrific?
Use search terms specific —
Readers click through.  You won't mind the price.

Aboard means to be on a train
Or a ship, and in these days, a 'plane.
So the cry "all aboard"
Should not be ignored,
Else behind's where you'll surely remain.

Mrs. Cooper (her Christian name's Carol),
Has a shape best described as a barrel.
She's convex as a cask
(Having sex is a task),
But she laughs and wears hoops on apparel!

"Mister, cows can't be bulls. That's absurd.
Bulls are male, you old fool. Use the word
So it makes simple sense."
"Son, it does. I'm not dense.
The cows means 'the cattle,' 'the herd'."

Chairs and tables I've carved and I've stained,
Made from old bits of wood I've obtained.
Me, I think it's all pretty,
But toffs from the city
Call it folk art, because I'm untrained.

Forget nuclear physics, I say.
Don't send diamond or carbide my way.
And philosophy? No.
Distilled booze I'll forgo,
Since I gave up the hard stuff in May.

Michael hit for the cycle today
With a powerful batting display:
A single (just one),
Plus a double, home run,
And a triple. Impressive, I'd say.

The brilliant but odd Seymour Cray
Devised the computer array.
Most experts agreed
Its phenomenal speed
Made mincemeat of tough FEA.

In the Bible one Sampson elected
To sleep whilst, by him undetected,
Delilah, hair tweaker,
Then rendered him weaker
By cutting his locks — unexpected!

It's arcane, but I've written my thesis
On anserine-type anuresis
(Lack of pee in the goose).
Are there others abstruse
As "Acute Anuresis in Geese" is?

Ankle surgery?  That's a real pain!
On our marriage it sure is a drain;
Doctors' visits are cued up,
His foot joint's all screwed up.
Playing nursemaid will drive me insane.

Sailing vessels with three masts or more,
Known as barquentines frequently or
Sometimes barques, are provided
With canvas divided
Part square rigged, and part aft and fore.

The first to the finish gets laid!
The stupidest bet ever made,
But that agonism meant
My last chance for consent:
The following day I was spayed.

Do you know that your visage is weird?
Now my wife and my kids you have skeered.
There are few folks among us
Who can sport a face fungus
And claim it's a regular beard.

Is your nation engulfed in deep trouble?
Though you'll risk quick reduction to rubble,
I can offer this cure
(It's the new curse du jour) —
May the West bring you aid on the double.

The scene at the deathbed was moving.
My mother on morphine was grooving.
The oncologist, trying
To avoid "She is dying,"
Said only, "Your mom's disimproving."

Our nation's obsessed with confession:
We make public each private transgression.
Seems we can't get enough
Of that soul-baring stuff.
Would it kill us to show some discretion?

When cats unwind thread from a ball,
They eglomerate. Cats, after all,
Like to play with things knit;
I, for one, had a fit
When Rags raveled my pashmina shawl!

A resolute company man
Has promised to do what he can
To cover for crooks,
So he's juggled the books,
But the balance sheet's hitting the fan.

While preparing a meal for his date,
The cannibal's caution was great.
He had hacked a dude up
With exactitude. "Yup,"
He thought, "just the right fit for the plate!"

All schoolboys can tell of Isaiah
(Who sang in his local church choir),
But brother Elijah
(Who sailed up the Niger),
Less known, was himself a high-flyer.

Using names of the prophets this way
Is a bit of a cheek, one might say,
But those bros from my town
Have such fame and renown
They're remembered in song to this day!

Little rabbits, a ferret is scary,
Carnivorous, sharp-toothed and hairy.
He's speedy and lissome
(Blink once and you miss 'im);
So, bunnies, of ferrets be wary.

I produce antirealist art
By ignoring what's real from the start.
I don't paint what is there,
But what isn't, like hair
On a cup, or a rose with a heart.

When you're out manufacturing glue
Or plastics or paint-thinner, you
Need buckets of this.
Yes, acetol's bliss—
Oh, and perfect for cleaning stuff too.

In the winter (with cold blowing snow)
On my bed, canton flannel sheets throw.
I stay snuggled up warm
While outside howls the storm.
I am glad I have no place to go!

"Let us concentrate, Kate," said her mentor.
"An intense state of mind we will enter.
Let's concenter. We'll focus
Our concern on this locus."
She cried, "Sure!" (She's an eager consenter.)

It certainly isn't a crime
For a DJ to buy up some time
On the radio, see?
Then the blocktimer's free
To do just what he wants; it's his dime.

In her dark, ugly mood she shouts out.
Apoplectic, she shows a mad pout.
Gone ballistic, our Sue
Is in such a stirred stew!
With no beau, she is doing without.

Classed Acanthisittidae then,
These tiny birds (wrongly called "wren")
Are Xenicidae now.
Watch one hop on a bough
In New Zealand, 'less cats strike again.

Tired bag ladies, lame, stumble by
In the rain, and I just want to cry.
I will watch them, so sad,
Without luck that I've had,
And think, "There, but for God, stumble I."

I'm away from the coalface, that's fine.
But I've still got to enter the mine
As there's backwork to do.
In the meantime, would you
Feed the ducks for me, dear Clementine?

You see, C is a letter near B,
Or a musical note before D.
As the sea laps the shore,
I see one meaning more:
The archbishop rules over his see.

The bowknot's embellishing loops
Are arrayed in a couple of groups
To the left and the right
Of a knot that is tight.
If it's loose, you could trip and go "Whoops!"

In a setting decidedly weird,
The Undersea Circus was cheered
When a long-submerged Ford
Opened up and a horde
Of some three thousand clownfish appeared.

Will experiment farms make a clearing
Round their Frankenstein veggies? I'm fearing
Tattie Triffids one day
Will arrive to make hay
Of us all, with this bioengineering.

A trainman, asleep at the switch,
Had been reading.  That son of a bitch
Failed at switching the tracks.
His attention was lax,
Costing lives with two trains in a ditch.

Take aluminum, cobalt and nickel;
Add iron and copper (a trickle).
It's magnetically active
(Like women, attractive:
But alnico isn't as fickle).

"Advantageable?" Captain Courageous
Shows disdain that's sincere and contagious:
"Why describe my ability
To fly with agility
As that when you've got advantageous?"

Two impoverished substitute teachers
Shared a house bearing bungaloid features:
Not pretentious at all,
More the smallest of small,
But a mansion — for poor country preachers.

There's an order to fees you collect.
Get them straight 'cause they're bound to be checked.
You at first may earn bash cash,
Then later there's ash cash,
And more in between, I suspect.

A professor of math was astounded
By coeds with booties so rounded.
They were shapely and stacked,
Yet, withal, quite compact:
Hence, by Heine-Borel, closed and bounded.

For the potluck at church, what I drew—
A fondue au fromage—left me blue.
Edam, cheddar, or brie:
Any two, or all three?
Can you tell me what cheeses would do?

"He's not yet at the end of his tether,"
Said God of the Pharaoh. "But whether
He knows it or no,
He will soon let you go;
He shall thrust you out hence altogether."

To air is to publicly say.
But to err  (said like air) means to stray.
Although many prefer
To pronounce it like "urr"
You won't err if you choose either way.

Ol' Grampa broke out of his cage;
To the whorehouse he ran in a rage.
At a hundred and three
He's got more oomph than me.
He's exceedingly spry for his age.

Aculeae grow on each wing
Of a lepidopterical thing.
It's a rather neat trick,
Making mothy wings click,
To communicate when they can't sing.

In a dram, sixty grains may be found,
And twelve ounces can stretch to a pound:
I don't scruple to state
That apothec'ries' weight
Is clearly not metrically sound.

They are compound, bipinnately so:
Many ferns think it's quite apropos
To divide the fronds twice,
'Cause if pinnate is nice,
Split again is enhanced. Way to grow!

As a butcher, I've got what it takes.
Disassemble a cow?  In two shakes!
You just lead in that cow
And I'll turn it, I vow,
Into burgers and briskets and steaks.

The words general quarters require
Some specific response. They inspire
A warship's full crew
To get ready to do
What their training dictates, under fire.

Achyranthes has spread to my curb,
And this forty-knot's blooms are superb.
With that nautical name,
You'd think speed brings it fame,
But, in fact, it's a slow-growing herb.

It lacks salt? You can add in some more.
But subtraction's a trickier chore.
Want to desalt your bisque?
Add a spud without risk —
It soaks up, you discard, whisk and pour.

It's the hundredth wee part of a dollar,
A guilder, a rand.  Do you foller?
The coin called a cent
Never aims to present
Any reason to stand up and holler.

Sir, you've been diagnosed with a cancer.
Chemotherapy's part of the answer.
For more activation
We'll use radiation,
So your cancer won't make an advance, sir.

In the glorious temperate autumn,
Maple's chlorophyll granules hit bottom.
With the chloroplasts dead,
Chromoplastids show red,
And suck in the tourists (we got 'em!).

When it's cloudy outside and it rains,
I'm beset by a passel of pains.
I take aspirin, apply
Deep massage—by and by
Very little discomfort remains.

Super-(fill in the rest)-alidocious:
In the film Mary Poppins, atrocious
Describes well that word,
The longest I've heard.
Say it loud and you'll sound quite precocious!

Says Doc Kaiser, my dental adviser,
"All your cuspids and every incisor,
Both above and beneath,
Are what's called cutting teeth."
Now while biting my rye bread, I'm wiser.

Dear Amplias: Greetings. It's Paul.
Bring your pals to our gang, it's a ball!
Our heaven is cleaner,
We let you have wiener,
And don't make you trim it at all.

"My Balinese cat," said Miss Burr,
"Seems to hiss and to scratch, but not purr.
She attacks my new throw!
She's a nasty fur foe
When she's eager to hunt my faux fur."

Drooling copiously, our little Ben
Has made puddles all over my den.
He's a basset.  I'm told
It gets worse when they're old,
So I'm sure it'll happen again.

I'm struck speechless, can't utter a peep.
Seems our national gene pool ain't deep.
Unaware, as a whole,
Says this dumbfounding poll —
29% can't name our Veep!

Some childhood sounds often repeat,
Like the boing boing of balls in the street.
In our ball-bouncing games,
We turned legs, chanted names,
But missed bounces would lead to defeat.

In a cozy, warm alcove I knit.
It's my hole-in-the-wall, poorly lit.
I drop many a stitch,
Yet my goal's to enrich
My dear husband, whom this thing may fit.

Someone summon the dubbing police.
Tourists visiting Hellas say "Greece,"
And Nippon is Japan—
Names are catch-as-catch-can.
Some are exonyms. Où sont les Suisses?

As the sovereign surveyed his domain,
Its contraction befuddled his brain.
They'd whittled him down
State by state, town by town —
What was Russia had shrunk to Bahrain.

Bringing physics to church?  So low class!
And the priests don't appreciate sass.
From my pew, I explore
Thermonuclear war —
Could it start in this critical Mass?

Though your drawing's, of course, not 3D,
The way you've foreshortened that tree
Suggests depth through perspective.
Your skill is effective —
Short lines appear longer, I see.

I'm a doubly-bilingual guy:
In Dutch and in German I'm sly.
In English and French,
I can woo the odd wench:
"O, chérie, oh, my darling, oh my!"

Just the implements under the pall
Were sufficient when masses were small.
But we need the ciborium;
Dei ad gloriam!
The crowd's spilling into the hall!

The ham operator said "CQ.
Is there anyone there?  Come on, speak, you!
I'm so bloody upset—
Everyone's on the 'net;
And the geeks who now seek you just pique you."

He never ate birds' nests or whelps
While in China, our champion Mike Phelps.
He admits just one vice:
"Racing dolphin's quite nice—
You don't have to swim fast, but it helps."

Errol's instincts can verge on the feral,
Which is likely to land him in peril
With his current lass Pearl,
Who's one gem of a girl—
Though she's not a choice morsel like Beryl!

For cadence, Philology Pete
Spoke lines with a regular beat.
"Thus hippity hop
And flippity flop
Is the cadence of skippity feet".

See her ankling slow 'cross the floor?
There goes someone I'd pay to explore;
Guys like me can't be choosy.
But I'm sluggish and boozy—
Ain't budged yet. She's walked out the door.

Our team's dreadlessness—courage and fearlessness—
Went for naught; our defeat brought us cheerlessness.
There's no after-game bash,
As the coach stole our cash,
And we're weary, sincerely, of beerlessness.

Now, birdwatchers, what's this we hear?
Is it true that, for most of the year,
The black-headed gull
Is really quite dull?
And the common gull's rarer; how queer!

While two men were out walking abreast,
They debated whose torso looked best.
Said Arnold, "It's mine!"
Leading Tarzan to whine,
"No, it's mine!" and start thumping his chest.

On-site video there, though outmoded,
Was recording when Rover exploded.
It was your crud she swallowed,
Then the grisly stuff followed.
The tape's been cued up and it's loaded.

It used to be deemed de rigueur
For ladies of fashion like her
To appear in the clubs
With a coat like a cub's,
But now it's a sin to wear fur.

Of all the great freshwater fishes,
Black bass is by far most delicious.
Make it spicy or mild,
Or consult Julia Child
For the key to a thousand great dishes.

From the Andes to Falklands, behold:
The diddle-dee takes on the cold.
On stone slopes and flats,
It forms low-growing mats.
Ornamental? By some it's extolled.

There's only one source that they cite
For that article.  Coming to light
Is the truth about what
Really happened.  Tut, tut.
Hire a fact checker, guys.  Get it right.

It's been years since my last lover, Jenny.
And prospects since then? Not that many.
It's clear "satisfaction"
And "younger" and "action"
Are three things I'm not getting any.

Born advantaged? You're noble and rich.
Yet I'm hoping you might want to switch
 With this peasant who's poor
 For a week, maybe more.
Not a chance? You're a son of a baroness.

Lime and grapefruit and lemon might be,
To my thinking, the best kinds of tree.
In citrus you'll find
Juicy fruit 'neath the rind
And a good dose of Vitamin C.

My means of support is in utter
Suspension; my life's bread and butter
Was recently cut.
Several doors I've found shut.
I'm just one step away from the gutter.

"This murder is going all wrong,"
Remarked Thomas. "It's taking too long!"
"With three shots to the head,"
Observed Ted, "he's not dead?"
"No, his heartbeat is still going strong."

When a propertied landowner speaks
Of dominium, surely he seeks,
With his lordly demands
For full rights to his lands,
To be featured in Marxist critiques.

He's a cuculine conman, a pest —
A parasite, pleasingly dressed.
Do not fall for the lies,
Or his needful disguise,
Or he'll — cuckoo-like — conquer your nest.

Before pop tops and tabs, when your topin'
From the can was delayed, and your copin'
With the bottle was slow
(Before twist-offs), you'd know
That a church key would get it right open.

With his 'Canticle' Simon referred
To a war through the counterpoint word.
Now his 'clarion call'
Sounds most poignant of all
As a hymn 'neath the folk song that's heard.

One belief that is central to deism
Is denial of "gosh-he-chose-me" -ism.
God won't intervene
In your personal scene:
It's a case of divine absenteeism.

In the zoo there is much disarray
At the new crocodilian display.
All the animals act
Like they're being attacked
By the gator that caiman today.

Lackadaisical students confessed
Liking lunchtime and recess the best.
But the aspect of school
That they hate, as a rule?
All the testing is what they detest.

As Ol' Otto goes out for a spin
In his auto in Attu agin,
Should he drive for the shore
Where there's hostels galore,
Or ought Otto opt out for an inn?

Colestyramine acts like a sponge
For bile, which your gut can expunge.
So your liver makes more
From the stuff that's in store,
And cholesterol levels then plunge.

"Jack's a no-show today…" "He'll be here.
When the ghost walks, he's sure to appear,
And the show will go on.
Jack on payday's not gone.
He's performing tonight; have no fear."

Uncle Roger, my uncle who boxed,
Now has skin that is blemished—it's foxed.
And I wonder if it's
Due to all those hard hits
Or the times that from gin he detoxed.

It's abembryonic, this spot
(It's one where the embryo's not).
Whilst forming a baby,
We find that there may be
Some places unfit for a tot!

Roger Chaffee—consumed in a fire
On the launchpad. No sacrifice higher
Was made for Apollo
So others could follow.
But first: redesign and rewire.

Get a babygram, stat—do not wait,
Since the spine doesn't seem to be straight.
This one x-ray will show
Baby's bones head to toe.
Something's wrong—it's not something he ate!

There once was a princess precocious
Who'd dine in a manner atrocious.
As cute as can be,
She'd sit down to high tea
And then bite through the cups. How ferocious!

It's for coots with an ache or a cold,
Or excretions that come uncontrolled.
Is arthritis yours too?
Special health care's for you.
Geriatrics — for when you get old.

Matthew Murdock can't see with his eyes,
But at night dons his Daredevil guise.
And while Hell's Kitchen sleeps,
He beats up on the creeps.
Two identities mean that he lies.

At my house—I mean, crib—I relax
Playing licks on my air guitar axe.
I'm one of those schmendricks
Who imitate Hendrix
(Or Coltrane, on air tenor sax).

Avoidable things, like the flu,
You can shun and not have to go through.
In an alternate way,
As a phrase, you could say
It's what bullfighters all try to do.

You've applied to our court once before
About orphans who asked you for more.
Mr. Bumble, your case
Can't be tried in this place,
So accept that conclusion of law.

Contesseration: you gave me your token,
And you, friend, took mine. The words spoken?
"We fit like mosaic."
The rest's formulaic:
You slept with my wife—the bond's broken.

The South African city of Durban
Faces typical challenges, urban,
Which increase as it grows.
Will it solve them? Who knows?
Ask that soothsayer, there, in the turban.

Her tumor's the color of tar
And as big as a Cuban cigar.
She's one hundred and five
And now barely alive.
There's a note on her chart: "DNR."

Faithful Annie's a twin-engine plane,
Slow and noisy, and cold. Just a pain?
No. I'm not a complainer,
The Anson's a trainer —
A good sturdy crate, in the main.

"What's an enzyme (I bet you can't guess)
That makes these here peptides process
From poly- to di-,
By hydrolysis?" "Why,
Dipeptidyl peptidase!" "Yes."

If it's edible, go on and eat it.
If it's frozen, you might want to heat it.
If it's moving around
You may still have to pound
It, or smack it, or whack it, or beat it.

For this popular theatre play,
I've a seat in the highest array,
To wit, gallery. I
Feel I'm perched in the sky,
And I'm tempted to set a belay.

A draught is a current of air
In a room, and it shouldn't be there.
In the States it's spelt draft
(And that rhymes with waft,
Which also means draught, I'm aware).

Gastropteridae, small bat-winged slugs,
Are hermaphrodites. What looks like hugs
When they mate, is a fight —
Who'll be "mother" tonight?
What repulsive yet beautiful thugs.

He wasn't just one of the guys,
And I felt like a warrior's prize.
Rippling deltoids and pecs—
He seemed ready for sex
As he carnally studied my—eyes?

Cultivation's the key to good crops,
And without it your volume soon drops.
So take time to prepare
All your fields with great care
Using methods you learned from your Pops.

A book made with very large pages,
That's the folio Dad's had for ages:
Twelfth Night. One Malvolio
Is found in that folio.
If you touch it you'll see how Dad rages.

University boffins decree
That a doctorate's a lofty degree;
Many credits are earned,
But true wisdom is learned
In real life; it's one long Ph.D.

A gullible girl named Fiona
Bought a Mini, "Just one careful owner",
From a salesman whose leer
Should have been a clear steer
That his fides were mala, not bona.

That loud dunner (reverb) has not ceased —
Still resounds, though the engine's been greased.
Its terrible dunder
Rents ear drums asunder —
A noisy mechanical beast!

Azhdarchids could walk with a stride
Or leap to the air, flap, and glide
Many thousands of miles.
I'll brook no denials:
They ruled the Cretaceous (then died).

Dere's a code virus bakig be sdeeze,
Ad sdiffle ad hack, cough ad wheeze.
Chickid soup ad hot tea:
Would you get sub for be?
Ad sub tissues — I sdeezed od by dees!

I think that I never shall see
A limerick nice as a tree.
If one comes my way,
It will mark Arbor Day,
Noted only by fools such as me.

Two white bones form an X — they criss-cross
Underneath a white skull to emboss
The black cloth of the flag:
It's a pirate ship's tag,
Warning other poor sailors who's boss.

When my bro bought this four-bucks-rent avenue,
I said "Baltic?? You must have some Slav in you."
But with Mediterranean—
That was insane! He in-
stalled hotels...You've been there, haven' you?

Miss Evangeline (sigh) Bellefontaine
Hexametrically searches in vain
For Acadian Gabe.
(He's her beau. What a babe!)
Then he dies in her arms. (What a pain.)

I'm in chicken soup up to my neck.
It flows one cubic meter per sec.,
So one cumec's the rate.
I don't think I can wait —
Can you turn off the faucet?  Please check.

I'll be adding an Ex-Lax or two
To these brownies I'm making for you.
You've been secretly taking
The cakes I've been baking.
Have fun when you run to the loo.

With his bow arm atilt by his bass,
He was ready to play, once his place
On the score had been found.
But confound it!  No sound,
Since his bass was shut up in its case.

Often radiant energy (light)
Brings a chemical change into sight;
Photographic emulsion
Will drive the compulsion
Of actino-chemistry's flight.

Darwinians everywhere greeted
The day old beliefs were defeated:
That glorious morn
Richard Dawkins was born.
(So now evolution's completed.)

A fluorochrome's that which fluoresces,
To mark biological messes.
To say any more
As to what they're used for,
Your guess is as good as my guess is.

There once was a lady of France,
And she ate Bethmale cheese quite by chance.
With its great mellow flavor
And aroma to savor,
The joy of it caused her to dance.

High atop a magnificent pine,
Mother's angel sat, looking divine.
Each porcelain wing
Was a delicate thing,
Her face sculpted fragile and fine.

We can label a period historical
As "The Age of [some dude oratorical]."
But for any one year
What's important's not clear,
So it's hard to be that categorical.

She's cultrivorous. Ouch! That must hurt,
As she swallows (yet renders inert)
Those sharp daggers and knives;
Yet she always survives —
And swills razor blades down, for dessert.

The price for this diner's a steal,
But I need you to broker the deal.
The owner is odd,
And the chef thinks he's God.
Can you give them a taste of your spiel?

My friend Sandy seems pleasant and cheerful,
Never fearful or hateful or tearful.
Yet I've heard from her gram:
"Her good nature's a sham.
You want gossip? I'll give you an earful!"

Any small or young dove, many know,
Is a dovelet and, while it is so,
Cooing lasses confirm
That it's also a term
They are dubbed now and then by a beau.

Your hull may lose some of its polish
If you scrape past an iceberg that's smallish,
But a growler might flip
Your unfortunate ship.
And a bergy bit? More like demolish.

Made of raffia, woven with care
To allow constant access to air,
My big clothes basket's store
Is tomatoes galore
Wrapped in newsprint, "vine-ripening" there.

For antiphony choirs must split
And find two separate places to sit.
Sung from left and from right,
Music's sure to delight.
The conductor, though, may have a fit.

When there's grit in the eye (so you cry),
Or the lacrimal gland goes awry,
And your eyes are all wet
(Though you're not that upset),
Sounds like dacryops: wetness of eye.

A meeting was called for this ditty,
To agree what is meant by committee.
There were minutes, a chair
And a treasurer there.
No decision was reached, more's the pity!

There is much to be said for ambitiousness
When it's not marred by greed or by viciousness,
But to triumph through terror
Is a vile moral error,
Though there would be a certain deliciousness . . .

I'm continuing learning—maintaining
My certification with training.
At times this is fun,
But I thought I was done!
Getting more education is draining!

Daumier — he sketched men as he knew them;
Noting foibles and farce, he'd pursue them.
No classical purist,
This caricaturist
Mocked jurists and kings when he drew them.

For earliest auto, I like
The Benz Patent-Motorwagen — a trike
With no roof, nor built side,
But a motor and wide,
Tall back wheels. With an engine, why hike?

A critique that will make you my debtor:
Horiatiki for Greeks, nightly feta?
Cretans boast of their cheese;
Their myzithra will please.
Salads eaten on Crete — so much better!

Cairns-Smith has a theory outré:
That our ultimate origins may
Be unearthed in formations
Of sedimentations
That replicate: crystals of clay.

Commissural connections are seams
Where two bodies unite. I've had dreams
Of a Siamese twin
Who is sharing my skin…
And my heart! (Then I wake to my screams.)

Making chocolate milk? This is how:
Take white milk, stir in cocoa. And now
You can finally rest
From your ludicrous quest
To discover the chocolate cow.

Though the wasp eggs and larvae are small,
In the oak, they make many a gall.
These wasps, called cynipid,
May to us sound insipid,
But the tree may be damaged and fall.

I'm playing charades with my progeny
(A game that befits anthropogeny?).
I know nothing about
What I'm asked to act out!
"Autogeny recaps phylogeny."

Puppy Rex likes to chew on a shoe.
His sharp teeth have destroyed quite a few.
If he talked, he would say,
"A good chew makes my day.
I really love sole food. Don't you?"

If you've met an old friend on the street,
And forgotten his name, be discreet.
Buying time with some chatter
Might clear up the matter;
If not, make a graceful retreat.

Acceleration makes rates proceed faster,
As when trained in less time by a master
'Cause you're suitably bright,
Though when driving at night
It's a way of inviting disaster.

It's well known that the coldest of showers
Have anaphrodesiac powers.
First for sex you are hot,
But then after, you're not,
And this feeling can last you for hours.

I'm applying to Dartmouth next week
Where they'll teach me to expertly speak.
So my first goal: matriculator;
Then later: articulator.
For the meek, I will talk a blue streak.

When Noah constructed the ark,
He could tell it would be a big barque.
But so large the boat grew
That he'd worry and stew,
"I won't have enough room to park!"

If ever you're thinking to sue,
Then the burden of proof is on you.
You're obliged to support
Your assertions in court.
Peers or judges deduce what is true.

What's called day-peep will find me asleep;
As the day breaks, my sleep may be deep,
But I'll soon see the dawn
And awake with a yawn—
Though I also may utter a *bleep*!

It was great till you got here, I swear,
Till you brought your disheartening air.
So depart these festivities;
Your dreary proclivities
Will deaden the whole damned affair.

He thought dipping tobacco would mean
He'd stay safe from the cancer he'd seen.
But although he's still young,
Surgeons cut out his tongue:
A glossectomy done on a teen.

What she said made my ego inflate!
"I've had thoughts of your body of late."
An ambiguous dig,
It referred to her gig
As a coroner, not as my mate.

A cutting-gloak's calling's to gash,
To lunge, plunge, stab, skewer and slash.
If you value your life,
Don't let him and a knife
Get too proximate. That would be rash.

Galileo could tell you the hour
By the diadrom, pendulum power:
The size of the swing
Doesn't alter a thing.
He gave birth to the clock in the tower.

A hundred steel men on the beach,
Gazing seaward beyond their eyes' reach;
In the tide's ebb and flow
And the setting sun's glow—
This sculpture by Gormley's a peach!

While visiting Azerbaijan,
I choked on a tiny pecan.
Soon the BQXK
Came to rescue the day;
They Heimliched me so I'd live on.

In a port near Marseilles, a coquette
Playing tennis approaches the net:
"I do not know the score
Since your point and, what's more,
What's this town called?" "It's game, match, and Cette!"

The cotylosaur was a creature,
A reptile whose salient feature
Was showing up first
On the land it traversed.
The Triassic's its time, says my teacher.

My mother is broke. I suspect
It's the passion she has to collect.
She buys fine figurines
Priced above her sparse means;
The obsession will have to be checked.

The words of the clinic ad's blurb:
"Our docs' expertise is superb."
And it's true that the harm
To my baby boy's arm
Was correctly tagged palsy of Erb.

Have you heard Kevin's latest false claim,
That with good-looking gals he's got game?
I can tell you for sure
That this story is pure
Fabrication.  From whole cloth it came.

Though a hangover's quite a deterrent,
And we'd pledged to be prudent, we weren't.
Our resolve rests in peace;
It was drowned in cassis,
Washed away by the powerful currant.

What the hell can you learn from the head
Of an ass? Nothing's there to be read.
Used in cephalomancy,
Skull readings are chancy.
Talking bones, pop? You're daft and it's dead.

At the blackboard, in physics, Mike shows
Ways how current electricity flows:
"Charged electrons zip round.
(Also protons, I've found.)
As to why: I'm afraid no one knows."

Cosmopolitan justice is great:
Punish felons, regardless of state.
Why should citizenship
Let these criminals slip
Over borders to Chad or Kuwait?

I'm ambitiously joining this crew,
With the aim that, whenever we're through,
I'll have garnered acclaim
For the fact that my name
Is attached to a limerick or two.

In Arcadia, rustic life ran
To the pipes of the great goat-god Pan.
A male torso adjoins
His loose capriform loins
In the form of a lewd goatish man.

Suspiciously, old Captain Cox eyed
The shipment of carbon suboxide.
"So, it's used for fur-dyeing?
Gee, the smell is too trying;
Guess we'll leave it behind on the dockside."

Graceful dancers may do a chassé —
It's a light gliding step in ballet.
The feet are aligned
Left in front, right behind —
Or the other way round, s'il vous plaît.

This dessert will pass every inspection:
So tasty! So smooth! On reflection,
To a fare-thee-well cooked!
But this place can't be booked:
Only Mum bakes such love and affection.

He admonished those different from him
That their views were invalid, quite dim.
No such warning should cause
Any person to pause,
But from Dubya, it's terror-is-'im.

Of this fault, if example you need,
Mrs. Malaprop's words you should heed —
Such as this catachrestic
Remark (quite majestic):
"Lead on, Sir, and we shall precede."

The em dash—it's versatile, true.
There is nothing—almost—it can't do.
The mark's uses are myriad—
Parenthesis, period,
Interruption, a colon—who knew?

Once a year, I must deal with (that's grapple)
My clutching (that's grappling) an Apple
Computer that bobs
In a barrel. Steve Jobs
Once demanded, "You geeks, cut the crapple!"

Does paperwork leave you agape?
This a bureaucrat cannot escape.
And I've even a hunch
That he bundles his lunch
In a package that's sealed with red tape.

The Crew Cuts (a group I can't stand)
Hit the top with "Sh Boom."  Other bland
Hits ensued: rock 'n' roll
But without any soul;
R&B made to sound like Big Band.

On a date, he's a creep and a thug.
He'll commit a cruel rape with a drug.
With a roofie, that fink
Plans to doctor her drink,
Then abuse her right there on the rug.

I must change the electrical flow
So it goes one direction, and no
Alternation recurs:
My small charger avers
It can commutate cycles just so.

The penguin's a wonderful thing,
Be it emperor, gentoo, or king.
And the smallish Adélie,
The one who moves gaily,
Deserves all the praises we sing.

Acid chlorides, as chemists will tell,
Are reactive — unpleasant as well.
Unlike vinegar's acid,
These compounds aren't placid,
So be cautious with CO-Cl.

Just imagine his state of chagrin
When he found out why he couldn't win.
He had rhymed star with war
And the judges all swore
'Twas an entry they wouldn't let in.

If in Queens I say "quoffee and bagel,"
But in Cork speak in brogue to inveigle,
Then I in effect'll
Be bidialectal.
(That's my understanding of Hegel.)

Bambino is "babe" in Italian.
In a creche or religious medallion
It's the Christ child; in truth,
Fans referred to Babe Ruth
As Bambino (but thought him a stallion).

Albania, Land of the Eagles
(A quite different place from Meg Beagle's).
On the blue Adriatic
It's undemocratic,
Since beards make their owners illegals.

What a beauty she was — licked my chops!
On that day, I sure pulled out the stops —
I got carried away.
When she spritzed pepper spray,
I got carried away by the cops.

Do you know of the song with the line,
I'm walking the line "'cause you're mine"?
The line Johnny knew best
Was the drunk driving test —
The "Man in Black"'s sin-ature sign.

"The Pope's fallible." "That, your belief,
Is errancy, meaning, in brief,
Persistence in error. See,
Protestant heresy—
Burn in hell, sinner!" (Good grief.)

Your report on The Iliad's due
In the morning; you're up to page two.
What you'll need to succeed
Is a summary read
And critique: it's the CliffsNotes for you!

An épicerie's really a deli,
But French-er; the cheeses are smelly,
The confit is ducky,
And those who are lucky
Can buy escargots canned in jelly.

If you want a suggestion to chop
Off continued debate, here's a prop.
You may find that it's curt,
But I'll boldly assert
There's no phrase that is better: Full stop.

Judge, I am this demon's accuser.
He's a pedophile, child abuser —
A sick user of kids.
How I hope the court rids
The world of, forever, this loser.

The chichas of Khan el-Khalili,
In Cairo, are sold willy-nilly.
For this cool hubble-bubble
They'll ask at least double.
Me, buy one? You think I'm that silly?

Off to bed in the winter we go,
But our shutters are broken, and so
Winds blow in, and they spread
O'er our covers in bed
Frosty blanketlike layers of snow.

"Did Carroll write carols?" asked Cheryl.
"To say so would merit the ferule—
But we chortle and sing
All his nonsense with zing,
'Cause to us, Merry Christmas means 'peril'."

Irish chieftains swore fealty as earls,
But to Bess they would always be churls.
The intent of this Tudor:
Assent that accrued her
Their lands, where her flag she unfurls.

Of the Avars, there's not much to find:
One more empire that ravished mankind.
Then the Bulgars and Franks
Led attacks on their flanks
And they vanished — left little behind.

It is said in the old children's rhyme
That the rat takes the cheese every time.
But wait! Hold the phone:
If the cheese stands alone,
Did the cheese kill the rat? What a crime!

Adjudication: the court won't impute
Any guilt in this legal dispute.
The defendant, we find,
Has no criminal mind
(And, to boot, she's just so doggone cute).

You can ride in all weathers, that's true,
And you've lost many kilograms too.
Your new exercycle's swell
As a bike, but do tell:
Don't you miss looking up at the view?

A chemistry student, poor Yorick
Said, "Alas, I feel doomed and dysphoric—
Racked my skull on this test;
But I'm gravely depressed.
I've forgotten which compounds are chloric."

Use of alternly faltered, then halted,
Which is odd, as this word can't be faulted.
It was clear-cut and dried,
Had its turn, but then died.
To alternately now it's been altered.

Derivations are used to explain
How those mathematicians obtain
Their results so arcane
That they drive you insane,
Or cause infinite pain in your brain.

Rolling forward, our progress is slowed
By the bumps in this farm-to-market road.
Heading west out of Fargo,
Old nitro's our cargo—
Next jounce and the crap might explode.

Like stars of a bright constellation,
In reciprocal astro-location,
Two objects may be
Correlatable. We
Use this term to describe their relation.

Can you manage, devise, or contrive
Ways to keep these three kittens alive,
Since their mother has left
And the kits are bereft?
'Cause on endive, I fear,  they won't thrive.

To enliven the view from my shack,
I once planted a quickbeam out back.
That inveterate rowan
Keeps growin' and growin' —
I've an arboricultural knack.

The carillon features the bells
Whence heavenly harmony swells.
And for once you can hope
I'm not pulling your rope:
It's a keyboard that calls for the knells.

Connect-the-dots journalists choose
Different facts from all over to fuse—
By deciding what's key
Among all that they see—
A coherent report for the news.

There's some funny stuff right in your eye,
But you can't clean it out, so don't try.
It's just goo, not a tumor,
Called aqueous humor.
What a cornea jokester am I!

Eve's been everywhere: Finland, Japan,
Argentina, Australia, Iran,
China, Greece, the U.K.,
Spain, the U. S. of A.,
Cuba, Turkey, Peru, and Sudan.

We're the best in the state, unsurpassed,
And we're aiming to prove it at last.
While the other teams vie,
Our first round is a bye—
Second round we will shine (they're outclassed).

All our structures are made of fascines
Set in place without help from machines.
Since we can't afford bricks,
We use bundles of sticks.
Our expenses comport with our means.

I like night clubs — I dance with the horde
At one place; then if I can afford
It, I visit a lot
(A short time in each spot).
Why I club-hop?  I'm easily bored.

The director says, "No vacillation!
You'll be heading our new deputation:
The Pandemic Committee
In our worst-stricken city.
You'll get hazardous work compensation."

My domain is named diggers.com—
It'll save you a bundle on Mom.
When you shop, choose her casket
To fill your e-basket;
Buy a "Dummies" book, How to Embalm.

Let me counterpose positive views
Of my rival with negative news:
He's a proven philanderer,
Slanderer, panderer,
Loser, and user of booze.

It's your gallstones; of that I've no doubt.
This procedure is one that I tout:
Cholelithotomy, which
Uses barely a stitch,
And leaves hardly a scar. See, they're out!

I shall publish this verse and be damned.
So what if you think you are spammed?
It's a poem to share
And I really don't care
If my soul into hellfire is slammed.

"Mr. Christian, you clean up this spill!"
Said the stern Captain Bligh (the old pill).
"And use Bounty, it's quicker,
Or you won't get your liquor!"
"I'll set you asea, Cap'n Will!"

Epididymal arms seem to be,
Toward the vas, like the boughs on a tree.
They are aberrant ducts,
So my teacher instructs.
Vasa deferens? None I can see!

I approach what I do with directness.
I've no time for today's strict correctness.
I'm straight up as can be,
All right angles for me.
Be my guest and check out my erectness.

D-dots come in circles (like yolks);
One p-pens them with pin-prick type strokes.
There's p-pink polka dots
And m-measles' dot spots
And d-dots in "D-dots all, f-folks."

The artiste with his famed entourage
Liked to demonstrate making collage.
With his odd scraps of tin
And old rags he'd begin
To assemble a piece "en garage."

Anaphia's lack of sensation.
You're anaptic, to Doc's consternation.
Anaesthesia to touch
Shouldn't please ya too much,
So you're under prolonged observation.

All the folks in the crowd seemed quite bored
With the way that the music was scored.
"Let's all hit on three—
Play an A, C-sharp, E!"
Cried Tom's bandmates in single accord.

Mike's differentness means he's unlike
All the rest of his workmates on strike.
While they marched round and round
Yelling slogans, they found
Michael singing and riding his bike.

"The meadow is gowaned," said she,
"Bedecked with bright daisies. For free
I'll adorn my old gown
With fresh gowans, and crown
My sweet love as we sport on the lea."

In the 1700s in France,
Some Catholics sought to enhance
The power of the State
In the church, and equate
It with that of the Pope—a strong stance!

Blackfin hues, whether vivid or pale,
Belie skills tunas have that prevail;
Since their own body heat
Exceeds seas where they eat,
They're more agile than prey they may tail.

Let's tell Sadie, "Go tend to the brute."
When she blushes, I find it real cute.
He's a "male-cow" to Sadie,
Who's ever the lady.
Her propriety's always a hoot.

No, I'll never play tunes monophonic
And won't shine in the town's philharmonic;
I've three sounds to supply—
Open string, buzz, and high:
My berimbau plays rhythm (no tonic).

The normal piano today
Has seven-plus octaves to play.
How low can it go?
Well, just so you know,
At the bottom is AAAA.

California has Senator Boxer.
She's tough; it's quite hard to outfox her.
The push for gay rights
Is just one of her fights.
She's cool; right-wing flak never rocks her.

My recycler's instructions begin,
"We don't want all your paper mixed in."
His ads need a jingle:
"Plastics? Metal? Commingle.
But paper? A separate bin."

Your late peke was an underachiever;
Now you're seeking a large eager beaver.
The dog you should get —
One you'll never regret —
Is a big, curly-coated retriever.

With wit, eighteen I's, with six G's,
Went with N's, nineteen high, eighteen T's;
I get W's ten;
Twinning X's twine, then
Within ten S-H twins, nineteen E's.

At a bar: "Hey, sweet thang, yew are hot.
Woudja care for a dance?" "I think not!"
Her chilliness clearly
Conveyed she sincerely
Detested yours truly a lot.

It's a new kind of ad campaign, with
Father Zeus, all his kin, and his kith.
Aphrodite sells bras,
Amphitrite sells spas;
All the salespeople come from Greek myth.

How foolish we were, how naïve,
How absurdly prepared to believe,
Always primed to be taken!
Too late we'd awaken
From dreams we would never retrieve.

"A charge account's wrong to its core,"
Said the dad, who paid cash at each store.
Then a flight was near barred
By the lack of a card,
Until "Here," said his teen, "I have four."

You borrowed a thousand and two.
Now your bill needs remittance:  it's due.
And to whom shall you pay
This large debt right away?
Tend to me, your debtee—that is who!

Council members may vote as they feel,
And their power and budget are real.
If they sit two till five,
Their poor brains might not thrive
Unless served (paid from taxes) a meal.

My real feelings I cannot conceal:
The invention of chrome-nickel steel,
Good for watch-springs, was neat.
It's resistant to heat.
What a feat! It's a very big deal!

The ejusdem generis rule
(A judicial interpretive tool):
If a  broad term's behind
A list that's defined,
We limit its scope to the pool.

Learning French is for many quite tough,
And French numbers they frequently fluff.
Un, deux, trois, they find easy
But then, feeling queasy,
They murmur, "Un neuf is enough!"

Will my gardens spring back and endure?
Many potherbs sprout blossoms, mature.
Like some dry, bitter weed,
They'll soon bolt: go to seed —
Next year's herbs for our table secure.

Take one variable (maybe some more),
Now a formula knocks on your door;
A short calculation...
A value's creation...
The function's foundation... rapport!

The real estate ads are too rosy.
They'll say that a cottage is cosy:
That means it's too small
With no storage at all.
Buying houses, you can't be too nosy.

Miss M. loved her curds at midday.
The rake thought he'd sweep her awhey.
Along came that spider,
But she was no bider.
She fled with the roué's toupee.

Those beatings and shootings?  Unjust!
I condemn them as anyone must.
But I'll make myself clear
That I won't interfere.
Take a stand?  Yes, by showing disgust.

Each atom's a zillion times bigger;
Together they form a steel figure.
Though fixed in its stance,
It's like bubbles at dance
When the lights (off and on) shine with vigour.

The poor dog soldier sat on his duff
Very seldom with labors enough
To attend to. His aim
Was their end. Why that name?
I suppose 'cause his life was so ruff!

Enceliopsis, a sun-loving plant,
Is called sunray by my Tucson aunt.
I sowed seeds in my yard,
But they died; the earth's hard.
In Alaska, some plants you just can't.

First the fishies crawled up on the land.
Eons later, the bipeds could stand.
All their carpals were changed
As their bones rearranged:
Evolution was lending a hand.

An apophlegmatic elixir
Clears phlegm when a cough will not fix 'er.
That frog in your throat
Has left slime on your coat?
Ewwww—no prince will you kiss at the mixer.

Tourists flock when the cherry turns pink.
Bradford pear flowers, rank-scented, stink.
But the apple's sweet blossoms,
Like baby opossums,
Say, "Spring has arrived"...with a wink.

An eager young fellow named Corbett
Moved about in a movie star's orbit.
When the star said, "Just one?
You're no entourage, son,"
How it punctured his pride to absorb it!

You'll see elephants flap whopping ears,
While they wiggle wee tails on their rears.
On their fronts — a big hunk
Of a thing called a trunk.
Their two ends should be switched, it appears.

Long ago, if you traveled through woods,
You would have to surrender some goods.
You paid chiminage then.
Life has changed, and now when
You lose cash, it's extorted by hoods.

Though the trial was, in short, an atrocity—
The result of bizarre animosity—
Pope Benedict said,
"I agree with the dead."
He was known for such grand generosity.

To look hot at the hipster soirée,
I wanted a look with cachet,
But the platforms I wore
Made me clomp on the floor
When I tried for a sexy sashay.

The alphabet Greeks used would be,
As the saying goes, "all Greek to me".
One letter I know
Is epsilon, though.
It's the same as the one we call  e.

The vets, about kitty, were heard:
"To save her, we'll shave her." Absurd!
First of all, she's too old
And it's also too cold,
So postpone it—de-furring's deferred.

Dad's in jail by judicial decree.
Several years he's got left till he's free.
We don't say he's a con
For the time that he's gone.
He just goes by the name "absentee."

I have seen taunting scrawls on Joe's walls:
"'Fraidy-Joe's scared to juggle — he stalls!"
Joe's rejoinder is this:
"True, but one thing folks miss —
Sad to say, I do not have the balls."

Just three months after Danny first crawled,
It occurred. Mom and Dad were appalled.
Wart-like things on his neck—
Little Dan was a wreck!
Epidemic, this acne is called.

For thickening liquids, most prize
Fine flours of oats, wheats, and ryes.
If your gut vetoes gluten,
Just use arrowroot in
Your sauces, your puddings, your pies.

A fakir is an Indian who,
Having made a rope levitate—Phew!—
To its top then ascends.
But there's more! Now he ends
With a wave, disappearing from view!

"Seize the day! Your desires? Don't flee 'em!
If you want great results, you will see 'em!"
So I shouted, "I will!"
But it's all gone downhill;
Man oh man, it's been one crappy diem.

The obvious truth in the room
Is the elephant.  Don't just assume
That ignoring it's best.
Risk that goes unaddressed
Can cause problems; what looms can spell doom.

When some hacker disrupted the grid
All the digital tracks were well hid.
While no damage was done
("I just did it for fun!")
That is hacking of which we're well rid.

An access course opens the way
For me entering college one day,
'Cause my previous knowledge
Was not fit for college,
But now I can make it—hooray!

It's been said Gothic builders were crude,
Since the classical forms they eschewed.
But bar tracery's art
Let the masonry part
To shed glorious light on the rood.

My parents would constantly bicker.
Mum said sauce should be thinner; Dad, thicker.
They would fight in the rain
Over whether the train
Or the bus to the airport was quicker.

A ship's Carley floats, thrown overboard,
Floated high. The crew's hopes were restored.
From the bulwarks they'd hung,
Overlooked and unsung.
In a pinch, though, a life raft's adored.

If your time machine works at long last,
Then you'll need a new way to lambaste.
When a dolt comes your way,
Use a word from his day:
Call him clodpoll, then fly away fast.

The goalie was light on his feet
With skills at the net none could beat.
His opponents scored zero;
The guy was a hero—
Again he had kept a clean sheet.

My birthday comes once every year.
That's one birthday per year. Is that clear?
I would have two or three
Every year, but you see
It is premature aging I fear.

I now live in a birdhouse, my third
Since the second collapsed—how absurd.
It's a box, made of wood,
With a roof, understood?
And intended for me. I'm a bird.

Though you wore a sheer nightie so slinky
And wished to do things really kinky,
I sadly refused
'Cause the perfume you used
Has an acid (butyric)—so stinky.

Hear the conga drums playing their song!
They resound through my brain like a gong!
With deep sounds they're endowed—
Yes, they're terribly loud,
Thumping bong-a-bong, bong-a-bong, bong!

The beet leafhopper's known as a pest,
A homopteran vector, at best.
Through a virus, a plot
Can be damaged a lot,
Leaving sugar beet farmers distressed.

Her boyfriend had promised to gift her
With something designed to uplift her.
She expected a tome
Or a song or a poem—
But that shape-shifting bra simply miffed her.

Said the rapturous rat, "I can't wait
'Til we capture that cat that I hate.
We'll go kidnapping, cat-trapping,
Catching her catnapping,
Aptly with catnip for bait."

Your words are not very extructive,
And I need some advice that's constructive.
When you said, "Resubmit,
Your new limerick's shit!"
It fostered  a mood unproductive.

What's faucal relates to your fauces—
The place where your salads and sauces
Tend to slide from your mouth
To your gullet (due south),
Where your food through your breathing-stream crosses.

"Here's a fluddilup that'll amaze ya,
And the mithulfaf grombledud crazier"…?
I can hear my watch tick;
Am I thick as a brick?
No, I'm sick: it's acoustic aphasia.

Changing keys caused me stress, angst, and fear,
But, well-tempered, I'm now of good cheer;
And the need to relax'll
Require no Paxil:
Herr Bach has retuned my clavier!

See again what I've not seen before?
Be again what I've not been, once more?
Though such statements will cause
More chagrin than applause,
Such annoyance I've learned to ignore.

I was near her erogenous zone
When she told me to leave her alone.
It's becoming a bummer
That, though it's the summer,
She's constantly chilled to the bone.

In a time when most comics were dreck,
Betty Boop sure was sexy, by heck!
There was cleavage to spy,
Frequent flashes of thigh,
A rectangular head and no neck.

We've had biblical rain—it's torrential,
And the high-water rise? Exponential.
Take emergency measures:
Grab totable treasures.
Evacuation at once is essential.

The second Pope Adrian may
Have been quite an old man, bent and gray,
When he first became pope.
Still, he managed to cope
In a reign five years long to the day.

We've been tango-ing now for an hour.
I feel faint, a whole horse I'd devour.
The cortina—at last!
Now I'll make my break fast,
Run for food, a cold beer and a shower.

You're offended by what others do
That conflicts with your precious world view?
Then I'd like to confirm
This derogatory term—
It is broflake and well describes you.

Look, I'm sorry you heard that, okay?
…That my bobble could turn you away.
Having said what I said,
I deserve to "drop dead."
(And I'm sure Dustbin Beeper's not gay.)

A frugal defendant named Marge
Was arraigned on a criminal charge,
Which the judges describe
As "too stingy a bribe".
Were it larger, she'd still be at large.

I wed up.  My wife's classy; I curse.
I'm a greeter; she works as a nurse.
She's more able and smart,
But till death do us part.
She's my better for better or worse.

D: a grade that can indicate slips.
Do both starts and ends musical trips.
Don: put clothes on one's frame.
Dona: Portuguese dame.
Donat starred in Goodbye, Mr. Chips.

Castrati, a long time ago,
Sang in opera, as most of us know.
Their high voices won fame
And great public acclaim.
They were perfect (except down below).

In China, the Boxers rebelled;
Under siege, foreign embassies held.
To relieve their legations
In Peking, eight nations
Sent troops: the rebellion was quelled.

Put your spoons down! means "cease now to scoff".
Put your knives down! — the rumble is off.
Put your forks down, however,
Is rather more clever:
Pick pockets of each passing toff.

Place your eggs in a hole in the ground
With some lime, salt, and ash. Make a mound.
Then in ten days times ten,
Dig them all up and then
Serve your century eggs all around.

This tree reaches heights quite imposin'—
Tap its sap when the ground is well frozen!
Seeds on wings cheer your spring—
Autumn's glow brings you zing,
When it's Acer saccharum you've chosen.

Tiny dictyostelids say, "Yo!
Get together, amoebae! Food's low!
Who needs to have sex?
We'll just join as a grex
And then form fruiting bodies. Let's flow!"

A weeper capuchin confessed,
"Hey, my life in the jungle's the best!
In the treetops each day
I will eat, sleep, and play,
Yet my cry sounds as if I'm depressed!"

Gabby ordered a plate of grillade:
Sizzling sausages drizzled in lard,
And sweet-syrup-sozzled
Back bacon bits, crozzled
And blackened and crispy and charred.

There's one thing all anonyms know:
Beware of the spotlight's hot glow.
They're always anonymous;
That, or pseudonymous.
(My anonym's "fast escargot.")

That officer's manner is tacky,
A disgrace to the cut of his khaki;
For promotions to earn 'll
Nose up to the colonel —
A butt-kissing, bootlicking lackey.

Adolf Hitler was certainly vain
When he christened his long armored train.
He called it Amerika
(World War II esoterica).
US entry caused that name to wane.

It is part of God's clever design
That there's time both to fish and recline.
But the Devil (that swine)
Got his mitts on my line.
Now its tangle I must disentwine.

"DBT," I had heard the cast say.
"All this tinkering's ruined our play."
Too much "help"? That's unwise.
I can empathize, guys.
I've had limericks that died the same way.

Thick walls and a big iron door
Make a bank vault a good place to store
Your money and rings
And valuable things—
Or wait out a nuclear war.

It doesn't take much to ignite
A huge flame war. Participants fight
In an online "debate"
Of rude slights — a crude spate
Of ad hominems, venom and spite.

They were friends—Trudy, Judy, and Rudy—
Till he called the girls "proper and prudey"
And each landed a punch
On his nose.  It went "crunch."
Not a gentleman,  Rudy was crudy...

Absorbent material, say,
Can mop egg yolk or spilled cabernet.
But if  left way too long,
Hear the fat lady's song:
"Oh, darn it! That stain's here to stay!"

In our teeth we have vessels and nerves,
And a hollow inside each tooth serves
To contain dental pulp.
When he's drilling it (gulp!)
Up I jump—so my dentist observes.

The wool of the yak is the best,
But the carders are very hard-pressed.
They must know when to stop,
Or in summer they'll drop,
Wrestling yak-carder card-yak arrest.

When you're lying in bed wide awake
And you can't go to sleep 'cause you ache,
And your head is so sore
You can't take any more,
Acetaminophen gives you a break.

On her science fair projects, Dot's gotten
A series of F's. Her most rotten
Made the teacher, Ms. Fyfe,
Sigh, "The fabric of life
Means its structure, Dot—not bolts of cotton."

The fibbing-match starts sharp at eight.
Fifteen rounds, with The Brute (who we hate)
v. The Kid (who we love),
Though when push comes to shove,
Gonna bet on The Brute. (Sorry, mate.)

They transformed to another dimension,
Which gained my wholehearted attention.
It wasn't the dancing
I found so entrancing,
But rather the ghostly ascension.

The conservator had to decide
If the "Venus" by Rubens (so wide
That the canvas had ripped)
Should be stretched and then stripped
Before stitching her ample backside.

The cardinal virtues, God knows,
Have importance that's primary; those
Are: fortitude, justice,
And prudence, I trust, is
Still there when my temperance goes.

Build: heavy-set; bulky and brawny.
Complexion: dark; swarthy and tawny.
Distinguishing Features:
Tattoos (mainly creatures);
Left pinky, gold ring (called a fawney).

Jim's a good-for-naught, layabout, bum.
He is lazy, not ill and not dumb,
Just a bone-idle jerk
Who refuses to work;
Still, the girls all adore him — how come?

Resort life commodifies leisure;
It's sold as an entree to pleasure:
"Relaxation's deluxe
For a few paltry bucks.
Next break, try our Vistas to Treasure."

John the Fish lost his tongue — what a shame.
Cymothoa exigua's to blame.
Now that tongue-eating louse
Calls John's mouth her new house.
Once a male, now the louse is a dame.

Well, you won't find 'em down in the sea,
'Cause they live on the land, like a tree!
The coral bush flowers
Delight me for hours.
They're as pretty as plant life can be.

My great-grandpa's so old he's not datable,
As his birth-year's not known, age unratable.
But my great-grandma claims:
With an eye for the dames,
He is datable, randy, and matable.

The baffling thing about guys
Is you never can tell by their eyes
If they offer romance
When they ask you to dance
Or it's lust that they thinly disguise.

No sylph, Mae was busty and beamy.
She spoke in tones sultry and steamy:
"In your pocket, ol' son,
Are y' hidin' a gun?
Or are y' jes happy t' see me?"

"This world will continue forever,"
Said God, working fulcrum and lever.
The job He'd begun,
Making earth, stars, and sun,
Was a cosmopoietic endeavor.

She abides on the floor of the ocean,
Kept alive by a magical potion.
With the shape of a whale
From her waist to her tail,
She's a benthic enchantment in motion.

That's a Challenger, Jack's brand new toy,
Because Jack's a great big little boy.
"Man, this Dodge really kicks,"
He says, "Look, a V-6!"
With his cars, Jack is not a dull boy.

The Reserves and the National Guard
Find their lives get a little bit hard
When a call-up occurs
And each soldier defers
Slapping steaks on the grill in the yard.

They're taking the census today
And assaulting my sense of fair play.
So I'm gonna strike back
With a counter-attack,
Keeping track of how many survey.

When the music's so loud you can't speak
At the disco, don't act like a geek.
If you want to be heard
When you chat up a bird
On the dance floor, just move in—and shriek!

A band filer knew what to do
As a part of a gun-making crew.
Was the filing by hand?
What was filed? What's a band?
I'm so sorry, I haven't a clue.

Abdominal pain had me reeling,
And over I almost was keeling.
I felt from the first
My appendix had burst,
So you might say I had a gut feeling.

"I am pregnant. My doctor has said
That my child has a very large head.
My urethra is small,
So I guess, all in all,
That dystocia's ahead," worries Fred.

Stuck the point of a diamond through skin,
And the culet pierced through like a pin.
I was careless and rash:
It made quite a large gash.
A "blood diamond" this surely has been!

His collectible caused him to grin,
Though, in truth, it was ugly as sin.
At the thrift shop he swore
That he'd bought it before.
('Twas his wife who had brought the thing in.)

She's a beauty, this filly I chose,
With a bald from her ears to her nose,
Christened "Blanca," of course,
My swift apron-faced horse.
Are there roses in store? No one knows.

The Australopithecus clan
Were an ape-like precursor to man.
They could walk (well, they loped)
And their foreheads were sloped—
Sounds a lot like my cousin Dianne.

To approve, we say, "Cool!" That's our way
To show that we like things. We say
(Do we not?), "That's so hot!"
When we like things a lot.
Hot or cool? I'm confused. What the hey?

The word calice, I'm sorry, provokes
The most rank definitional jokes.
Like: This chalice was used
By a priest who, confused,
Said "Let's get the h. outta here, folks!"

She centers her life on her son.
He's her focus, her favorite—the one
She attends to and favors.
I bet that this shaver's
A self-centered kid when she's done.

There's a study guide, known as CQ,
That the Seventh Day Adventists do:
The literal, orderly
Collegiate Quarterly.
They podcast it daily. Who knew?

From an elderly baker named Schlegel,
A kiss might elicit a bagel;
But in Brooklyn's back alleys,
Gals knew his bialys
Were always the best to inveigle.

An eyeshade can be a sun visor,
Or blindfold (you're now two facts wiser),
Or make-up to paint
My gal's eyes — dull, they ain't —
So men gawk, while the ladies despise 'er.

What's been scripted the guy keeps revising
At his desk; that's not new or surprising.
But while reading the news,
He's been airing his views.
And that's pure editorializing.

Near the campus of Yale there's a place—
An old tavern—that Yalies embrace,
Where they'll order a brew
And a spicy fish stew
They pronounce "boo-la-BOO-la-yuh-BASE."

For this case I'm the on-site recorder:
In our house, we've an overweight boarder
Who, each third or fourth night,
Eats whatever's in sight.
Ginnie's got a binge-eating disorder.

I signed onto the net with an "ACK"
And a couple of friends ACKed me back.
Then I asked, "Are you there?"
To a hacker named Claire,
Then "Ack! Thbbpt!" when she answered me, "NAK."

Ambassage: here is a case
Of an obsolete noun we can trace
To mean embassy, so
For an ambassage — go
To Illyria, Carthage, or Thrace.

Heard a singer last night at the Met
In a role that I'll never forget.
John Del Carlo's his name;
Singing buffo's his game,
And I haven't stopped laughing as yet.

Dick the duck ran away from his coop,
So I lassoed that duck with a loop.
I asked, "Dick, why'd you run,
You old son of a gun?"
"Cause I heard you say, 'Easy — duck soup!'"

Mountaineers often search to acquire
A belayer with skills they desire:
To control safety ropes
On precipitous slopes,
So that climbers, not angels, rise higher.

On a fortunate night, I give thanks
For the spuds buried loosely in banks.
Then I burrow to "borrow"
My meals for tomorrow,
To fatten my flea-ridden flanks.

When the crow with the crown on his head
Was pronounced by the coroner, dead,
All the crows tried to corner
The courtliest mourner,
To crown as the king in his stead.

A cephalophore is a saint
Whose behavior is morbid yet quaint:
Being martyred (and dead),
He picks up his own head,
Which I think shows a lot of restraint.

In the worst nursing home in our town,
The unmoving old man, lying down,
Has decubital sores
Which the staff here ignores —
Spot the evidence: stains on his gown.

He's gambling! I'm filled with alarm
When I see that he's chancing his arm.
He's doubled the pot,
Betting all that he's got—
Which is me and the kids and the farm!

When a bright mathematical whiz
Was expounding on data of his,
I berated him so:
"Data are! Don't you know
That it's datum that goes with an is?"

Can I tell if you've broken a bone?
First I grab you and stifle your groan.
If I hear a break grating
That's crepitus, stating
"Your methods are hard to condone!"

"Not a shy guy, restrained by timidity,
Sy proceeded with heated rigidity,
Making love to me fervently,"
Said my servant, observantly,
Disturbed by her growing gravidity.

I have trouble in falling asleep,
And the prices of pills are so steep!
To drift off takes me hours
Of directing my powers
To the counting of sheep—but it's cheap.

A basidiomycetus fungus,
Saprophytic (this term is humongous):
Some agarics you eat,
Although some come complete
Fit to poison the careless among us!

The watchmaking crème de la crème
Are the Swiss, and from hairspring to stem
When they measure a distance
With rigid consistence,
The unit's a simple douzième.

The harassment goes on every night;
The guerrillas attack until light.
Let's call in Manila's
Top counterguerrillas
And just put an end to the fight.

She's been drinking too much at the bar,
And her driving is not up to par.
Her date understands,
So with two steady hands
He's bimanually driving the car.

To the family, he tossed a black snake
Made of rubber—a major mistake.
He felt wrath from these folks
And learned practical jokes
Prob'ly shouldn't be pulled at a wake.

Old Van Dyke, a Dutch hewer of logs,
Went to masquerade balls in his clogs.
When disguised as a tree,
He'd mistakenly be
Discommoded by drunks and rude dogs.

Extra points are small scores that aren't much,
But our kicker is losing his touch,
And this game will depend
On his skill at the end—
We're afraid that he'll choke in the clutch.

My friend was so happy she purred,
When the Gospels of Jesus she heard,
And the Antilegomena
She read with aplomb, in a
Book (Revelations, preferred).

Appetitions are longings that pique:
Prehend shivam, for goodness you seek;
You're driven by duty
Towards sundaram (beauty)
And satyam (the truth, so to speak).

You won't guess what I saw just last night:
An actinomyxidian fight.
 No, they're not just big germs,
 But they're things that eat worms.
You should see how these parasites bite!

To describe the gestalt of a firm,
Corporate culture's a most useful term.
Are they noble, rapacious,
Uplifting, voracious?
Or sleazebags who make us all squirm?

There once was a Zen Buddhist chap,
Who arose from a prurient nap.
He found a solution
Through fast self-pollution,
But contracted the one-handed clap.

Cryptitis, acute, tends to strain us,
And fees for its treatment may drain us.
We feel ripped off and gypped
By the germs in that crypt,
And complain of a pain in the anus.

Grandma Tess only takes the express train.
She claims it's the "stylish finesse train."
Looking down on the locals
As fit for the yokels,
She calls it her "speedy success train."

When the weather is balmy and mild,
Your streamlet is gentle, unriled.
But when wind becomes frightening,
With thunder and lightning,
Expect for your bourn to be wild.

He takes care of the food and the wine
To ensure that their storage is fine.
The good cellarist knows
Nooks where everything goes—
The basement is this servant's shrine.

In glycogen storage disease
You don't synthesize sugars with ease;
For some the condition
Improves with nutrition,
But others get worse by degrees.

If a mom-to-be finds there's no room
For six fetuses inside her womb,
She can't choose ectogenesis
Therapy; when it is
Feasible, babies will boom.

"You mean ampersand, don't you, confound it?"
"Not at all. As a term, I propound it.
The word's asperand. Really!
Its use is, ideally,
For that 'a' with a line wrapped around it."

Her instructor gave Shirley the eye;
She strode forward and climbed to the fly,
Secured and extended.
When ladder time ended,
Her climbing skills rated sky high.

With humility, also civility,
I signal supposed affability.
See me congee right now:
With respect I shall bow.
Could this gesture cloak latent hostility?

Well, your gizmo is broke: it needs glue, dad.
The doohickey's out of date too, dad.
This thingumajig
Just don't fit (it's too big).
Whatcha want is a new god-darned doodad.

Levee rifts left New Orleans bereft;
Flooding snarled her societal weft,
Leaving victims galore,
Old and poor, at death's door,
To subsist by donations or theft.

Leftist bigots will do what they can
To condemn the Caucasian clan.
Art and music is slammed
And philosophy's damned
Of a dead white European-type man.

I'm the guard that you pass in your bank
And my uniform says I'm first rank.
But I'm nowhere near bold
Since I'm eighty years old
And my bullets are clearly marked "blank."

The Scots have a colorful word
That mimics a sound we've all heard
Made by somebody who's
Wearing waterlogged shoes.
Ever chorked in wet boots? Sounds absurd!

If great music's what you want to hear
Then the ceolmor's for you—lend an ear!
From the great Scottish nation,
That's the literal translation
Of classical bagpipes. (Don't jeer.)

When everyone strikes in a frame
Except one luckless guy off his game,
That poor chap buys the beer,
And his teammates all cheer,
"This round is on you? What a shame!"

My delineature got a rave
In most every speech that I gave.
My company traffics
In iconographics;
It's slide shows and spreadsheets we crave.

The Agency teaches clandestine
Disguise; and their spies are the best in
The field.  When one poses,
You'd swear that he's Moses;
But look, he's that charlatan, Heston!

Expunction's a word for erasing,
Removing, discarding, effacing
That which, after completion
Of the present deletion,
You may or may not be replacing.

Cricetids can't hope to control
What they see when they go for a stroll,
But the view from a wheel
Has a timeless appeal
For a hamster, or gerbil, or vole.

As Mom's birthday approached, Tim was giftless.
Not a penny saved up—Tim was thriftless.
"Get a job, work at night,
Or the day shift, you might..."
Counseled Dad, but in vain—Tim was shiftless.

The seaman asked, "Why, Captain Bligh,
Are your spindle-shaped buttons awry?"
"My fanatical flogging
Deranged my befrogging,"
Said Bligh, with a spiritless sigh.

When you bury your head in the sand,
You ignore or dismiss, out of hand,
Signs of danger; you choose
Not to see all the clues.
In your life, harsh reality's banned.

While a priest, known as Bricklayer Rod,
Was repairing a wall, thus spoke God:
"At the top, I would hope,
You will furnish a cope."
But the final result just looked odd.

Anchovies ees small salty feesh;
They add a strong taste to a deesh.
I no like them but eet-sa
What's on-a my pizza
So no one else eats it, capeesh?

To the trade shows for autos, each year,
Comes a concept car, looking most queer.
This future edition
Won't come to fruition:
Its features will cost something dear.

Our "save Village Square" communality
Shows our townspeople's common mentality.
We adore the old place
And we prize empty space.
Civic pride is, for us, a reality.

A person can get in a jam
When in love with amour (as I am).
Once I thought being amorous
Made life much more glamorous,
But with five beaux to please, it's a sham.

I sell  fine golden ale by the pail.
For the license allowing that sale
I'm an annual payer
Of a tax to the mayor.
"Ale-silver's too high!" tapsters wail.

In the broadcasting business, they say,
The executives daypart the day.
Yes, they break it in bits
To determine the blitz
Of promotions and hits they will play.

Control-D is one shortcut to know.
It can make the font dialog show,
Deselect your selections,
Make bookmark collections,
Or simply delete in one go.

There's no need for this shock and dismay;
I do love you, but not in that way.
 Though your jaw's still agape,
 My love's not sex (or rape),
But spiritual love — agape.

A colour (grey-beige), this is grège.
It's a French word I heard in Liège
From a lovely young wench
Who taught Spanish and French
At the school which is known as collège.

"You bet your life, out there it's nippy!"
Cried Groucho.  "The winds are quite whippy.
You'll get frostbite for sure.
Dan and Dick here concur."
They responded, "You bet your sweet bippy!"

This blood vessel's path leaves me vexed.
It attaches too soon to the next.
This aberrant artery's
Not in the charteries
Nor in my medical text!

To protect both your throat and your noggin,
Wear a muffler and knitted toboggan,
As well as a sweater—
You'll come out much better
That way, when through snowbanks you're sloggin'.

You asked, "What's an appendage?"  Let's start:
It's a less vital, oft jutting part
Of a creature or plant,
Like a leg on an ant.
Tell you more? Well, of course; I'm that smart.

I am nubile, and flaunt my facility
To glow with potential fertility;
Rich and single, he's eligible:
"I do", if intelligible,
Will witness our joint suitability.

Your psyche is still on the blink!
For crying out loud!  Do you think
You could give me a break
With your issues?  Chrissake!
You'll be driving this shrink to a shrink.

"Becky, how do you want the CDs?"
She replied, "Ditrichotomous, please."
Said our dad, intervening,
"Your sister is meaning:
In groups of some twos and some threes."

Most anecdotes, as we have seen,
Effectively pull a large screen
To cover a fact,
Relating an act
The way it could never have been.

Most employees now fancy a fight.
Fellow workers cry out, "This ain't right —
This abuse we don't like!"
But we can't go on strike
Till we unionize. Let's start tonight!

Altho we cant spel, you cant fire us.
We're not lazzy — genettix hard-wyre us.
We realy have tryed
But our lixicon's fryed —
It's a falt in the angular gyrus.

The absolute scale, we can see,
Starts at absolute zero; so we
May consider it pleasing
That water starts freezing
At a temp of 273!

Got a pocket knife? Let me relate
Where your knife has a silvery plate:
On each end—these are bolsters.
Like guns in their holsters,
They keep your blade safe while you wait.

There's this old guy who claims he's a knight.
And his speech? An archaic delight.
Though it's all a huge act,
It's contagious, in fact.
Is he rich? Well, he doeth all right.

With a broom he creeps up to the boardroom,
Where the carpet is woven in broadloom.
Its gargantuan size
Brings a tear to his eyes:
To the janitor's mind it's "abhorred room".

At home, when the current runs high,
And the wiring is liable to fry,
It will trip circuit breakers;
These circuit-stop makers
Engage so the surge won't get by.

Latin roots can be tough, but you could
Look at English words; and, if you would,
You'd find male- means "bad",
"Causes hurt", and "is sad";
But its opposite, bene-, means "good".

An excerptor is one who selects
The quotation he firmly directs
Be used as a sample,
A valid example:
The essence of what it reflects.

Doctor Dunne's the big gun in his field:
The top guy, with rich pals as his shield.
So here's what he said:
"I would rather be dead
Than resign as head med — I won't yield!"

Her threat "By tonight you'll be dead!"
Had escaped me (gone over my head).
I suppose that my dear
Was sufficiently clear.
It's my own fault our bed's cherry red.

It's so far! Should we ride all the way?
There were sixty-five ballots for "nay".
But the same count for "aye"
Meant the vote was a tie
At Optometrists' Pony Club Day.

"I've a crore in my pocket, you guys!"
Is a statement extremely unwise
If you're touring in India.
Let the locals get wind o' ya,
And a fool and his money applies.

My seven-year-old makes a study
Of ways he can make his clothes duddy.
They're most ragged and tattered,
And thoroughly splattered
With mud when he wrestles his buddy.

There once was a faller named Feller
Who was known as a boozer and heller.
Working high on a spruce
His frayed harness came loose.
Now old  Fell in the graveyard's a dweller.

Five A.M., and my dear wife proclaims
She's prepared for, you know, fun and games.
So I say, "My sweet lady,
"You're sixty, I'm eighty.
My fire's nearly out — fan the flames!"

One of Canada's banks has it made:
Innovation with reach to invade
The wide world overseas.
It expands by degrees:
Witness Scotiabank's dogged crusade.

When I'm feeling alone, on my own,
In my life there's a bone that I'm thrown.
Meet my good friend, the banker.
Each day I must thank her —
She never will leave me a loan.

In his autograph letter, the pope
Says: "In heaven, I trust, lies our dope."
Once the note gets inspected
And duly corrected,
The typo will vanish, we hope.

Their abdomens held overhead,
The acrobat ants came and fed
In this Big Top (my kitchen!),
And now I am itchin'
To see that their circus act's dead!

The economy's slowed to a crawl
In Uganda and primed for a fall.
Major fraud has been blamed.
Air supply, it's been named:
Making cash out of nothing at all.

We have company coming tonight.
Clear away all the messes in sight.
Hurry, get off your duff.
You can put all this stuff
Under beds and in closets, all right?

The struggle inside keeps us thriving:
Superego for virtue is striving—
While the ego may feel
In control of the wheel,
It's the id that is doing the driving.

You're familiar with chess, you're au fait
With this wonderful game, so you say.
But I just wonder why
You put coffee and pie
On the board (like a tray) and don't play.

When you think or believe that you grieve
Just too much, you should call a bereave-
ment counsellor who
Might try showing that you
Would be better off taking some leave.

"A propeller can generate thrust."
"Oxidation of iron forms rust."
"Weight is different from mass."
"Sand and lightning make glass."
They're not factless — just drier than dust.

A chef de cuisine loved to tell
Of his prank on a punk (drunk as well):
He steamed the drunk's lager,
Admixed agar-agar—
In minutes, the lager was gel.

How much salt in a teaspoon's a dash?
Kitchen mavens know this in a flash.
Twice a pinch—that's a clue
And four smidgens would do.
Overdoing can cause tastes to clash.

My wife bought a tiny new car.
Its compactedness seems quite bizarre—
Getting in's a tight fit;
On the gas tank you sit.
It's like jamming your ass in a jar.

On a cruise up the Yangtze, evasion
Can often succeed where persuasion
Has failed to secure
One a bunk on the tour:
I inveigled the berth of an Asian.

She replied, "You formidable kidder,
Your disbursement's too small to consider.
The fellow who savors
My sexual favors
Will be (yessiree!) highest bidder."

Lack of data integrity stinks —
It's the internet's principal jinx.
We restrict, with great fervour,
Our refs to one server,
So readers don't chase broken links.

An august master chef, Escoffier
(Whose brigade system's still used today),
Put himself well above
Those who quarrel and shove
In a pompous chef's kitchen affray.

Said my grandpa when I was a kid:
"You must do certain chores, as I bid.
Mop the floors, mow the lawn..."
I'd get up with the dawn.
All that could have been done? That I did!

The Bible's a choice compilation
Of tales for our edification.
Our lessons begin
With original sin,
And progress to eternal damnation.

Discordia, Goddess of Strife,
Kept conflict in Ancient Rome rife.
By stirring the pot
She made cold wars go hot,
While the Romans thought, "Girl, get a life."

A lady from Bangor, in anger,
Played Wagner and Bach on a hanger.
With a whack she'd attack it;
She'd smack it, then clack it.
The racket? Less music than clangor.

In a gin-house you couldn't be choosy:
You'd drink anything, just to get woozy.
To disable your legs
You'd drink alls, that's the dregs,
Thus ensuring you quickly got boozy.

Life is finite. Too soon dims our light.
Death approaches. My end is in sight.
"But we'll live with our Master,
Not die," said my pastor.
I'm betting my soul that he's right.

Continuous growth, or accrescence,
Suits businessmen, not adolescents.
There is no end, I fear,
To a corporate career,
As there must be to youthful tumescence.

Do they know who comes here (the U.S.)?
"For the most part," John Kerry says, "yes."
As they vet, they control
Who's let in (on the whole).
Do they screen out for terror?  They guess.

As I scoop up my ninth canapé,
You endeavor to steer me away.
I'm a threat to hors d'oeuvres,
And you have no reserves.
But I doubt you can keep me at bay.

An astute, perspicacious old colonel
Wrote impressions of life in his jolonel.
"I may seem like a crank;
Sure I value my rank,
But its spelling," he wrote, "is infolonel!"

Doc, I know that the herb in your pot
Is biennial, and that it's got
A stout taproot, and comes
From Eurasia, but crumbs—
Any clotbur has burs on, you clot.

If you're running a cunning affair,
Like deceiving or thieving, beware!
You're not slick as you think,
For as quick as a wink,
You'll be sailin' to jail in despair.

At twilight the sun slowly fades.
That's the time when she pulls down her shades
And retires, in the gloom,
With some boys to her room,
For a dignified game of charades.

Take some cod liver oil twice a day,
'Cause it's full of this vitamin A.
It may wrinkle your nose,
Even curl up your toes,
But the pain in your joints goes away.

To abduct almost always will vex,
Whether stealing a woman for sex,
 Or just borrowing cattle
 To make your ship rattle
En route back to Nebula X.

Although people might call me a jerk
Since I drive a big Hummer, I smirk.
But now filling its tank
Is nigh breaking the bank,
So my wife began walking to work.

If you wanna see news, CNN
Will inform you again and again
And again of what's gone
On today, on and on,
And again and again and again.

A spot on our lot is alight:
It's alit, but a trifle too bright.
It's been burning for days,
First aflame, then ablaze.
From afar you can see it at night.

The ammodytes dig in the strand
When the ocean recedes from the land.
These are fishes, quite small—
Just six inches in all—
That enjoy being buried in sand.

He's acquainted, I fear, with the law;
And he learned all he knows from his pa.
We'll acquaint him once more
With a prison-cell door
For the crimes that our witnesses saw.

"I'm trisexual," quipped the young guy,
"If it's sexual, I'll give it a try."
"That's good," laughed the nun,
"I'm bisexual, son —
If it's sexual, I give it a bye."

It is globulous, truly worldwide:
There's broad climate change — nowhere to hide.
Take our home by the bay:
There's no way we can stay
When, one day, it floats off with the tide.

It's the site of romantic deliria,
And of knowledge, a grand cafeteria.
It decides what I do
And what action's taboo—
I'm describing my precious cinerea.

An eye for an eye was the way
Of revenge in rough justice's day;
But now we forgive
And let wrongdoers live,
With a healthier forfeit to pay.

That brain-picker's picking my brain
To extract what I know for his gain,
But I'm brainless and don't
Have a clue, and I won't
Even hint what he gets is inane.

Freshman Chester, in class, likes to pester.
He's a drollist, a joker, a jester.
But our prof's not amused,
And he's flatly refused
To let Chester complete the semester.

When I visit museums of art,
Certain paintings can capture my heart.
From afar they engross,
But when seen from up close,
It's their brushwork that sets them apart.

If you're looking for diplomats, go
To a place in the city I know
Where ambassadors dwell.
They work there as well,
And they call the place Embassy Row.

She loves shellfish, from first to last course,
Longs for lobsters the size of a horse.
But it's finfish for him,
True fish hooked on the swim—
Incompatible: grounds for divorce.

Serpent's ploy, BroAdway Boy, Steve Job's Mac,
Dad's delight, fire blight, midday snack,
Gotham's name, larynx bumP,
Johnny's fame, Newton's lumP
Kafka's hurL, GwynEth's girl, toady's knack.

The act of incessant complaining,
That it's cold, or it's hot, or it's raining —
Continual harping
On details is carping.
Such moaning is not entertaining.

She was once quite the rock concert-goer,
And she'd dance near the band just to blow 'er
Teenage mind into chips,
And so now she reads lips.
Could you speak just a little bit slower?

True, the "World's Greatest Orator" label
Was all that he brought to the table.
After loss number three,
For another run he
Said, "I'm ready and willing and able!"

The brain's cerebellum is grand.
There are gray cells in groups like a strand:
A fastigial clump
That can help when you jump,
When you're moving your eyes, or you stand.

Etherification: This just means the way
You make ether.  Uncommon today—
But when doctors once used it,
Few patients refused it.
It kept surgical trauma at bay.

The government board FCC
Deals with radio, wire, and TV.
It regulates air
And the info we share,
Making sure they're obscenity-free.

"What? Confederate Memorial Day?",
Cried a Civil War buff in dismay.
"It's just natural," I said,
"That they honor their dead.
Their observance was first, by the way."

He had too many pints of dark ale.
He was dazed and decidedly pale.
He pondered and wavered,
Then wandered and davered—
He could not tell his head from his tail.

My foul language caused Mother to screech,
"Swear-to-god, down your mouth I'll pour bleach!
You make sailors sound great."
"But, Mother," I state,
"It's my right. I've got freedom of speech."

He'd be fined by the court, plain to see:
He had wronged me, that heartless marquis.
Pay in land, said the law
To the glum cognizor.
(I'm the gainer, the smug cognizee.)

How was classical mythology born?
Out of cultures as old as the dawn.
But it's all Greek to me —
Why would gods disagree?
And the maids — why so sad and forlorn?

The absorbate's the thing, don't you know,
That inside a solution will go.
Whether liquid or gas
It will hide all its mass
Within something like pure H2O.

I had showed you and thought that you learnt
How to cook Cajun fish, but you weren't
Really paying much heed.
A hot skillet you need.
The term blackened means "seared."  This is burnt.

Edward Lear, that famed Brit of droll mind,
Gave us limericks (light verses, five-lined).
But the type I like sharin'
Are rooted in Erin:
The lewd and lascivious kind.

Though my mom stayed at home in the summer,
She sent me to day camp—a bummer!
While crafts I was making,
Her pipes got a snaking
Each day by the neighborhood plumber.

The debt that my son-in-law owes,
For the bank is an asset: a chose
In action, at law.
To define it much more
I would have to explain it in prose.

A blessing is something worthwhile,
Like a figure that's always in style.
But a bane is a curse
(Like a spouse who's perverse)
And evokes the reverse of a smile.

If my white cells I dedifferentiate
Into stem cells, my fame will potentiate,
And my lofty position
Won't rise by addition.
It will, I believe, exponentiate!

Pictorial stamp cancellation:
What a strange philatelic fixation!
It's a flag or a goose,
Or it's Bullwinkle Moose
Recalled with a graphic ovation.

Said Doc Dingle, a bit of a quack,
"You've got years of accumulated plaque:
Layered crud in your butt.
Let's re-route your whole gut."
I skedaddled and never looked back.

"America's back.  Why so glum?
The recession's finale has come.
Happy days have returned.
Still, you look so concerned."
"I'm concerned that you think I'm so dumb."

Cobbled street, terraced homes of red bricks—
Much-loved Corrie's an intertwined mix
Of complex relations
In fraught situations—
And for millions, a thrice-weekly fix.

For activities open to all
Who live near it, and hear its warm call,
The community centre
Is where you can enter
Into all of the fun: have a ball!

What's a cool Anamorpha surprise?
It's their number of legs, I surmise.
Pairs at start?  They have seven,
But, merciful Heaven!
More than double that somehow arise!

"Ms. Diane is renowned for prediction;
Endowed Fred is an expert in miction.
When famed meteorologist
Weds meaty urologist…"
(That's a blurb from my book, which is chiction.)

Tiny turds always make my blood boil.
In my kitchen? My dinner they'll spoil.
Late at night in my house
Running free is a mouse!
I won't rest till my "guest" I entoil.

I'm on Facebook by day and by night.
My followers like what I write.
I've got invites and friends.
I've got feeds to the trends.
But have I got a life? No, not quite.

Here's my "bravo" to Tree Hugger Gore,
Whose kilowatt usage will soar,
'Cuz his house fills his lot,
And his pool must be hot.
Are Al's principles just for the poor?

My cat, in the summer, was parched,
So across to his saucer he marched.
But my dog (what a nerve!)
Got there first—what a curve
On the back of my cat as he arched!

Just to gaze upon Mary is scary;
Her arms and her legs are so hairy!
So I said, "Don't be dilatory—
Employ a depilatory.
For the silky smooth skin of a fairy!"

"This war is just wrong, I can feel it.
Bush's lies can no longer conceal it.
But we still have some pull:
Funding's abrogable.
We must gather the votes to repeal it."

If only he'd done what I said —
Not light farts but light candles instead —
He'd be much better off, in
Fact not in this coffin.
Yes, he'd surely have come out ahead.

There once was a sculptor named Marvin
Who couldn't sell heads he was carvin',
As he always made noses
Projecting like hoses;
God knows—that's why Marvin was starvin'.

"At the Halloween bash," Jodie wrote,
"Moe resembled a randy old goat,
And he had us in stitches
With his tight-fitting britches
And old-fashioned cutaway coat!"

Said Prof Peter, who looked in his 'scope,
"You're infected; your body can't cope,"
In a voice pedagogical.
"The etiological
Microbe's this virus (I hope)."

The Asylum Committee advised
I be deinstitutionalized.
I'm no longer confined,
'Cause they mended my mind
With a frontal lobe portion excised.

In Russia (nineteen-seventeen)
The February Revolution was seen.
Though it didn't get far,
It got rid of the Tsar.
An assembly it tried to convene.

The guests are astir and abroach
In the lobby, engaged in reproach
Of the shocked personnel
At this fancy hotel,
Where each pillow's adorned with a roach.

Alas, that she's lamb-bedecked mutton,
Not young, and for loving, a glutton.
But she strolls through my bowers
Admiring these flowers:
I'll give her a bachelor's button.

"I'm preparing to go meet my maker!"
That's bed 7. Her maker can take her.
She pretends to be deaf,
But she's not. BFF
We have marked in her chart: "big fat faker."

Your blood relatives—father or mother,
Or your children, or sister, or brother—
Are so called, in my view,
As they're aye bleeding you,
When they're not leeching off one another.

An annihilator seeks to destroy
Quite directly, without being coy.
He is steadfast of mind
And leaves nothing behind
But his Mephistophelean joy.

I bought junk bonds; please don't ask me why.
Back in those days, their value was high.
But we suffered a crash,
And now I need cash.
The capital loss makes me cry.

Empty words in abundant supply—
It's the mantra you hear when you fly.
Disembarking the plane,
There it goes, once again:
It's "buh-bye" and "buh-bye" and "buh-bye".

A miner who lived by the Tyne
Went to look for some coal in a mine,
But his naked-flamed light
Made the firedamp ignite—
Yet thank God, the canary was fine.

In the desert, their campfire should
Boost the greenhorns' morale—but there could
Be a fly in the ointment,
To cause disappointment:
A deficience (a shortage) of wood.

Said the general, "See, over there,
The form of that trench — crémaillère;
The zig-zagging line
Is a clever design
To bring a fierce cross-fire to bear."

When I beckoned, and ordered a flummery,
The waiter looked sad and said, "Bummer." He
Explained that the flan
Had been flushed down the can,
And they'd called for emergency plumbery.

The denizens here have the right
To hunt for the pot, day and night.
You can share in that prize
If I denizenize
You. Just pay me enough, and I might.

The American shorthair's a cat.
He comes skinny, just right, or too fat.
But his hair can't be long
Because that would be wrong.
Now what do you think about that?

I've polished my polka routine;
It's the cleanest that anyone's seen.
Among Poles who get down
At the clubs here in town,
I'm renowned as a Danzig machine.

In these vaults are our best cellared wines.
Master's served one each night when he dines.
Two or three he collected
Were not as expected.
Trust nothing born dangling from vines.

"The botanical name", said my mum,
While she drank from a large glass of rum,
"Prunus avium means 'cherry',
Though it's sorta contrary,
Since it's Prunus, which makes it a plum."

Of geranium genus, this grows
Where the climate is temperate — those
Kinds of comfortable places.
It's named for the faces
Of cranes with a long beaky 'nose'.

Grandpa's binder was sheathing our wheat
When a jolt knocked me clean off my feet.
When at last I exhaled,
I'd been haywired and baled.
That old reaper's goldurned obsolete.

I see wind flutter leaves on the trees;
Scattered whitecaps appear on the seas;
And light pennants display
Their full forms: I would say
We're at Beaufort scale 3 — gentle breeze.

Since our childhood, our mother has kept us
In the dark, and she never has prepped us
To understand life,
Be a husband or wife—
We thought storks brought each mom a conceptus.

"Chris, your x-rays reveal something strange,"
Said my doctor. "You need to arrange
For a surgeon and shrink—
There's within you, I think,
At least twenty-five dollars in change."

From the hostess, I wanted to hide.
"Oh, your cooking's delicious," I lied.
"Would you care for another
Blue meatball?" (Oh, brother!)
"No thank you, I'm good," I replied.

That cumulus (sub-type congestus)
Grew quickly, so fast it impressed us.
Those tall, puffy towers
Bode more than just showers.
A picnic? Whatever possessed us!

What's designative serves as a sign
That can indicate, mark, or define:
Hester Prynne had an A
On her chest—a display
Meant to designate crossing a line.

The exec did not like the campaign,
And she greeted each ad with disdain.
"All your billboards fall flat.
Your commercials? Old hat!
Not a customer will they obtain."

My brother is animalistic.
His lifestyle is quite hedonistic.
He constantly feeds
His desires and needs,
But get married?  We're not optimistic.

We were cautioned (but no one could halt us)
That our gold mine was largely cobaltous.
You'll be paid (rumour's true!)
In Co, not Au.
Bought it cheap, so we ask, who could fault us?

"Oh, Captain, it's fearful, this trip!
Oh, my Captain, how bad was our slip?"
"Just a little while back,
Ran aground near Iraq;
Now this weather may founder the ship."

It's apparent to us, but not you,
You're as needed as poop on a shoe.
The two of us feel
You're a classic third wheel —
Your extraneousness screams, "Say adieu!"

When covetously Susie espied
The young man by her friend Amy's side,
She decided to steal him
From Amy, and deal him
A plot using wiles she applied.

What's this business of Father and Son?
God's triune? Binitarian? One?
If a tree grows a leaf
For each form of belief,
With these three, it has barely begun.

Should I yes? Should I no? Such a riddle!
I'm pushed and I'm pulled, so I fiddle.
It's avoidance-approach,
And I need a good coach —
I keep winding up smack in the middle.

I like ten-dollar words, I confess,
Like dentalgia for "oral distress."
I'm not feeling all right,
But at least I sound bright.
(It means "toothache," no more and no less.)

"Fancy stew, Stuart? Let's get some grub.
Darn! The larder is locked. There's the rub.
With no key, I've no clue
What to do. Stu, do you?"
"You could break in, Hugh. Who needs a dub?"

To terrorize, threaten, or bully
Is an act I don't understand fully.
I don't bulldoze. Not me!
All true bullies agree
I'm so sheepish, I'm actually wooly!

When I found it to be rather runny,
I asked, "Waiter, what's up with this honey?
It's soaked right through my bread."
"Why, it's ersatz," he said,
"Since the real stuff costs far too much money."

My shrink said, "You will persevere.
Take your worry, annoyance, and fear
That persist, and don't punt;
These you need to confront.
You'll see bugaboos soon disappear."

The Scotsman was known for his brawn—
Tossed the caber each dawn on the lawn.
But one braw windy day
It was swept right away.
"Why it's gone with the wind," he said, "blawn!"

Like a cross between Tetris and chess,
Cathedral is bound to impress.
As a game, it's inspired!
Perception's required,
Not to mention great guile and finesse.

The fish in a tank think it's great
When people add air to their state.
They exhibit elation
At water aeration,
So don't you just stand there—aerate!

"To encircle, surround", that's enround.
It is obsolete, so I have found.
I have checked all my dicts,
But I don't think the Picts
Used enround when enrounding a mound.

Should the term artificial reality
Need a licence to practise duality?
I confess an aversion
To total immersion
In something beyond practicality.

My language: it stutters, I stammer,
'Cause I know not so much from it's grammar:
Composition of phrases
Inability raises.
My grammar are all with no glamour.

Oh my god, it's my birthday—again!
Though I used to be young (way back when),
Too much age I have gained,
And today I've attained
My biblical three score and ten.

The chef here has not proved suggestible:
Each comestible stays indigestible.
His raw duck canapé
Drove the diners away,
And his corn flakes flambé was detestable.

"A curve can't be pious!" you shout.
A crunodal one is, without doubt.
Though it's not on its knees,
At a crunode one sees
Where it crosses itself. That's devout.

There are three British blokes in their beds.
On their pillows are three British heads.
Were they Yanks at such ease,
They'd be catching some z's.
As it is, though, they're catching some z's.

Not long after photos began,
One "type" was a flash in the pan.
Daguerre had a winner,
And tin-types were thinner,
So ambrotype's glass "also-ran."

When we call someone "Judas" we claim
He's a traitor. (They're one and the same.)
So don't let it faze ya.
In antonomasia
The class is implied by a name.

Some grass-eating creatures we keep:
A cow, seven goats, and a sheep.
They are known as herbivorous
Or graminivorous.
Their upkeep is pleasantly cheap.

In Erastianism we see
This suggestion (not quite a decree):
"The state is supreme."
Thus the church, it would seem,
Must defer; that's the way things should be.

Any thoughts about death I can bear.
I'm not frightened of dying, I swear.
Still, when down in the pits
I will read the obits
And be gladdened to see I'm not there.

It's a sad day our children will greet
When consumption is over, complete.
They will walk home, alas,
When they've run out of gas —
Which is surely a pain — in defeat.

My friend Annie says anything goes
When a couple's in sexual throes.
She says I've no pizazz
And I hate all that jazz.
I'm just blah from my head to my toes.

Here's a shrub that we call manzanita
And it's downy, my dear señorita.
When it hasn't grown fully,
Its twigs appear woolly,
Or hairy, just like an Akita.

"For a pain that's extremely abominable
That's caused by an ulcer abdominable,
Block acetylcholine
With Daricon, fräulein,"
George Bush said. "It's freakin' phenominable!"

Calamity Jane would exclaim:
"That Wild Bill Hickok I'll tame!"
Yes, they say that she lied
About being his bride,
But her grave's next to Bill's all the same!

The all-nighter, perfected in college,
Is finals week's shortcut to knowledge.
To cram for the test,
I'll forgo any rest.
Gotta read this entire antholog...

That young fellow, a fine engineer,
Makes machines that appear to be queer;
Yet those pistons and sprockets
Put gold in his pockets
To spend on loose women and beer.

If you count 1, 2, 3 (yes, it's dull),
For forever, with never a lull,
Then the value will wend
(Even though there's no end)
To our transfinite friend, aleph-null.

The Cliftonia grow to small trees,
A ways up from the Florida Keys.
In the springtime they bloom
With a gentle perfume—
And the bee-keepers pleasure their bees.

My butler will not deign to speak
To non-speakers of Latin or Greek.
While fashions distress him,
The classics impress him.
Their readers are part of his clique.

When I take this confection and plunge
In hot water, it just turns to gunge.
The nibbed sugar, mixed peel,
Dough and vine fruits congeal.
No, a Bath bun's no match for a sponge.

There's a principle banning profusion
Of things too alike. This exclusion
Extends to each pair
Of electrons who share
All their states, which would lead to confusion.

I'm weak and infirm and I drool;
Growing old is unbearably cruel.
I am deaf and half blind,
Now I'm losing my mind:
I'm no more than a doddering fool.

Saint Andrew, oor bonnie apostle:
Och aye, he's an icon colossal.
But wha's tha', the noo?
Andy's their patron too?
How can whisky and vodka both jostle?

I'm torpedoed and, surely, I'm sinking:
Someone's messed with my woman, I'm thinking.
She's been acting right weird;
Now she's flat disappeared—
A dead cat on the line… and it's stinking.

The speaker wrapped up his oration
With an epigrammatic quotation.
This added a bit
Of succinctness and wit,
And some welcome diversification.

You keep washing your hands as you cry,
"Out, damn spot!" and uneasily sigh.
After poor Duncan's death,
Wicked Lady Macbeth,
Your disquietude leads you awry.

Don't ask me to bowl.  I'm the worst.
When I try to, I'm bound to be cursed.
Other bowlers complain:
"You must aim for your lane!"
No more bowling, unless I'm coerced.

No, my baby I'd not call a dumb-dumb.
She owns grown-ups who fill up her tum-tum.
Should her nappy get poopèd,
She's not at all stooo-ped —
Cries cutely and sucks on a thumb-thumb.

Colour rhymes aren't sublime!  It's a crime
That you choose to use hues that don't chime.
Don't say purple — I'll moan!
Orange ain't the right tone!
And with silver, I'm ill! Verse should rhyme.

We're a death metal band, the Spilt Guts.
Do we sing of romance? Are you nuts?
Hear our screams! See the gore!
Be afraid—this is war!
Did you snore? Kiss our horrible butts!

You're another year older today.
Happy birthday!  Allow me to pay
For the surgeries you
Can't afford.  You need two
Hip replacements?  Well, hip, hip, hooray!

Somewhere placed at the front of a mag
Or a paper is where they can brag
About who does what where
(Of which, readers don't care),
And that listing is known as the flag.

Elude means the same as evade:
To escape due to tricks being played.
Bruce's crew was so shrewd
They were never subdued—
Left the sheriff dismayed, I'm afraid.

Shooting dice, he invariably crapped,
And in love he was so often slapped.
Just imagine his thrill
Upon finding a skill,
When with Microsoft Word he was "apped".

Your regime calls its scheme commonsensible.
It's efficient, but hardly defensible:
Genocidal "solutions"
With mass executions
Will someday be judged reprehensible.

The hotel thief was captured with ease,
Though he ran when he heard the shout "Freeze!"
The copper's nark's tip
And the bellhop's quick trip
Worked in sync—"Lock 'im up, toss the keys."

We've begun the election campaign;
The last president's failures are plain.
Since he acted as king,
Then the voting should swing
On good sense — let's get out of the reign.

I'll eat anything else, except that.
I'll eat tripe or balut till I'm fat.
I'll eat beets in a sec,
But there's no way in heck
I will ever chomp down on a cat!

When topology's math seems to fight us
And it twists and it writhes just to spite us
'Til our brains are inflamed,
The affliction is named
Very aptly: analysis situs.

Alarm is the fear that will fill you
When you think that a mugger might kill you.
Or else, if you're rich,
It's a system for which
Some security guys overbill you.

Individual writing's our mission,
So I suffer this self-admonition:
For better or worse,
I did not write this verse
All alone. It's a cocomposition.

I'm frustrated and bored on this ship,
Out at sea with no specimens — zip!
And that rig-swinging crew —
They're like apes in a zoo!
I fear nothing will come of this trip.

Danny drove as though trying his luck—
Suicidal or merely a schmuck?
In the death seat Dee waited
For whatever was fated.
She'd've jumped, but the lap belt was stuck.

My lovely young girlfriend contends
That she and my wife are good friends,
That they're wholly exchangeable,
Quite rearrangeable
Doubles, from faces to ends.

Let's deglutinate, dear. We must part.
There's no need to be smart as Descartes
To discern our affair
Will bring only despair
If the head's overruled by the heart.

Finding rhymes is a difficult fight,
But I often repose, late at night,
With my eyes opened wide,
And my muse as my guide
Dictating to me what to write.

The process of Americanisation
Is happening to many a nation.
Though in ways it's a blessing,
There's much that's distressing:
US lager's a foul aberration.

Through November's unpleasant wet fogs
I heard one of the neighbourhood mogs
Go miaow from a tree,
And this sounded to me
Just like cat-talk for "call off the dogs".

On the sidewalks of streets that I traipse
Not a knuckle of mine ever scrapes.
I stand straight, I shun trees,
And I've far too few fleas
To derivably come from the apes!

Your parrot has stopped being talky
Since her perch was removed to Milwaukee:
Your parrot's deceased!
I said, "Not in the least—
She's just being uncommonly balky!"

It's a well-proven medical theorem:
If germs make you tremble and fear 'em,
Blood taken from those
Who've been lately exposed
Can be processed to yield antiserum.

Where the Piedmont rolls down to the Plain,
The conspicuous change in terrain
Is the Fall Line. Its power
Mills lumber or flour.
Build there, and cease racking your brain.

I'm the type that resents taking rest,
Which was harmful, as I convalesced.
So they tied me down tight
When they turned off the light
At eight-thirty — "It's all for the best!"

In astrology, ages ago,
The word cardines surely you'd know.
It meant "cardinal points"—
The celestial joints;
With some guidance, your future they'd show.

Our next conversation revealed
I'd misspoken, and meant: "depth of field,"
Which the experts advise
Rests on aperture size,
So no deal, in this instance, was sealed.

A duck with no beak would still waddle.
A snail with no shell would still dawdle.
But take off the tail
From the duck or the snail,
And what you have left is acaudal.

Though many a prizefighter goes
To the Catskills to train and trade blows,
A more apt mountain range
For this fistic exchange
Is the one that's pronounced "poke a nose."

The defamer said, "Gee, you are lazy,
Incompetent, mad (I mean crazy!)
There's much to be said
For your kind being dead.
You don't get it? My gosh, you are hazy!"

There was an old man named Fidel
Who increasingly didn't look well.
Surely Cuban cigars
And those rocket-finned cars
Should be all that you need to feel swell?

This magnum holds more than old dreck
Says the bottle ticket hung round its neck.
The small plaque on a chain,
In the vintner's domain,
Asserts "this is a good one." I'll check.

If cartographers didn't prepare
All the maps, how would travellers fare?
For then no-one would know
Which direction to go.
A to B would become A to where?

These cherry tomatoes I'm chopping
Won't talk and it's making me hopping;
"Are you veggie or fruit?"
I demand, but they're mute—
And till one of them blabs, I'm not stopping.

A caliphal state wants to free ya —
Man-made laws are replaced by Sha'ria.
They're god-given instead,
And can cost you your head —
No recourse in Islam, mamma mia!

When I chugalug beer with my frat boys,
Empty calories may make us fat boys.
We've been told that this booze
In excess makes some lose
Earthly life. If that happens, we're stat boys.

When a plane falls right out of the sky,
Causing hundreds of people to die,
An accident investigation
Will seek the causation:
It will try to discover the "Why?"

We were having one helluva brawl
When she pointed the gun and said, "Paul,
Just say which it will be.
Is it her?  Is it me?
Sweetheart, make up your mind; it's your call."

The prez you're exposing will bristle
To learn you've gone public; and this'll
Be certain to end
Your employment, my friend.
That's the blowback from blowing the whistle.

"With that monument trashed," said the client,
"I repent, I'm no longer defiant.
My annoyance confessed,
Jail avoidance seems best.
On your mercy, dear Judge, I'm reliant."

With container ships, Chuck has been struck,
As their cargo stays dry, free of muck.
They are bulky and large,
Like an oversized barge,
With containers the size of a truck.

The Walrus and Carpenter's fun
Had begun with a walk in the sun
With some oysters obtained.
Later, no one complained
Since they'd eaten up every last one.

Educationalists pick at our schools,
Test new theories and play with new "tools."
Their results are foregone:
Programs fail; they move on.
And new experts get hired, with new rules.

The moment has come... it's dramatic.
You open that trunk. You're ecstatic.
Your heart's beating faster...
For there... an Old Master!
Find fortune on Cash in the Attic.

How unfair! Emmetropic Aunt Joan
(So dubbed as her vision is known
To be perfect) espies
Any motes in our eyes,
While ignoring the beams in her own.

Massive earthslips are no fun at all.
So stay clear when you see a part fall
Off a mountain or hill
Or a cliff. Better still:
Hide behind a stout fence, or a wall.

Believe me, my dear, if your charms
Were to fade, all at once, from my arms,
If your waistline grew fat,
And your bosom went flat,
I'd run off and sound forty alarms!

With exogamous marriage, you flout
Expectations by marrying out.
Though your folks tried to nix a
Respectable shiksa,
No grandparent's quite so devout.

Aveton Gifford lies low on the Aune,
Which can sparkle with sunshine at dawn.
There's a road that gets sopping,
And locals go shopping
At a store that 'big' managers scorn.

Food and drink in my bowl and my cup,
I sat down at the table to sup.
As I ate, from my throat
Came a belch. So I'd note,
"What goes down sometimes rises back up."

When a rain forest tree takes a fall,
The Cecropia grows straight and tall.
Protected by ants,
Among sun-loving plants,
Its soft wood is no good—not at all.

Don Coyote was Wile E.'s first name.
He's the Roadrunner's foe that we blame
For explosions bizarre,
Nasty pranks that will jar
But induce lots of laughs frame by frame.

Peter says he's on gardening leave
From his job. Well, he's apt to deceive!
Since he lives near the sky,
Twenty-one stories high,
Where's the garden? I'm not that naive!

With true exaltation of flight,
Gentle larks gain incredible height,
But through tracking their singing
I just discern winging
By slightly adjusting my sight.

"Hey, your desk looks as neat as a pin!
That looks bad," said the boss, with a grin.
"Move your cute little tush.
You've got papers to push—
You're my wife, but you still must dig in."

Deb's terror of men was deep-seated.
Perhaps she'd been badly mistreated
In childhood—abused—
And that left her confused.
Firmly fixed, fear's not quickly defeated.

Ugh!  Figures!  Of course!  You're obsessed
With avoidance of germs.  Shoulda guessed
That I'd prove ineffectual
With anything sexual,
What with bodily fluids expressed.

An old witch, in a fit of largesse
Toward a wizard, said, "Clerk, I must stress
That this potion that I'm
Sending must be on time;
Thus, I'm sending it Federal Hexpress."

A lamp maker, last name of Kendrick,
Sought to turn a nice pair for his friend, Rick —
The coaxial kind,
With all centers aligned,
Though eccentric lamps Kendrick did send Rick.

What a factiose person is he;
The best splinter group maker you'll see —
A fomenter of factions
And mutinous actions,
A "group within group" devotee.

Her bedizenment aimed to impress;
Instead it evinced "tasteless mess".
With sequins and spangles
And feathered fandangles,
She'd flounce in her furbelowed dress.

How farrand, how pleasant our home:
Our fine icy retreat outside Nome.
What I hear we must fear?
Igloo-melt this warm year.
Uh-oh, dear — I see drips from the dome!

All month long you've been beating your brains,
And yet one burning question remains:
Are you certain that when you're
Selected for tenure,
You can serve California champagnes?

Krazy Kaskets? "Slick" Sid is the prez.
Every customer gets a free fez.
He's made gains economically
By treating folks comically.
"Put the fun back in funeral!" he says.

He lay flat on a specialised rack
For some heat treatment, ice in a pack,
And massage, head to toe,
To improve spinal flow;
It's been hard, but the lad's fighting back.

There is also the cuckoo, I learn,
The malkoha, the dipper, and tern,
Plus the sunbird and wren,
Which you'll see now and then,
And the antwren. (It's here I'll adjourn.)

If scree forms from a stone as it tumbles,
Or while handling a cookie, one fumbles,
Those small pieces we see,
The resulting debris,
May resemble food toppings called crumbles.

The maiden, curvaceous and sweet,
Approached as I walked down the street.
First she sighed, then she quipped,
"Hey, your fly is unzipped."
My abashance was nearly complete.

These two girls—over fate they were powerless.
One was dowered; the other was dowerless.
The latter was not
A good catch, so she got
A poor match and her wedding was flowerless.

Shall we dance?  Shall we get in the groovement?
You ask: "Step, with a rhythmical movement
Of our torsos and arms,
To the music?" Your charms,
Little geek, need a bit of improvement.

The current production rate's less
Than a Ginnie Mae mortgage. Excess
For commission we earn
From the half-a-point turn,
And the holders of bonds acquiesce.

On the freeway, preparing to pass,
You accelerate—step on the gas—
But should you mistake
And stomp on the brake,
You'll accelerate backward, alas.

Are there three modes of heat transfer, or
Only two modes? One less, or one more?
Radiation, that's clear,
And conduction appear
To suffice. What's "convection" used for?

The water supply had run brown,
So they hired a guy to drill down.
But his screw tool was plastic:
That bit of elastic
Would not augur well for the town.

"Wine of Kings" is Barolo. It shines
(As it should) as a wine that defines
What it means to be loyal
To taste, for it's royal:
It's often been called "King of Wines".

When she's angry, this pretty young miss
Will first smile  but then, cat-like, she'll hiss.
Since that fills me with fright
(I'm afraid she might bite),
It is only her photo I'll kiss.

An Author's Note: words to be heeded,
But a few words are all that is needed.
If an Author's Note's long,
Well then, something's gone wrong,
And the piece simply hasn't succeeded.

A bite indicator gives note
That a fish has just nibbled. Your boat
May tell tale when a handsome
Shark chomps on the transom;
On rivers or ponds, watch the float.

I contrive to write poems so swell,
But contrived are they, and you can tell.
I do write like this so
My neat rhyme scheme will go.
Well, too bad it's art'ficial, misspell(ed).

She's his diamond, his ruby, his pearl:
Such a huggable, kissable girl.
Of his eye, she's the apple;
He aches for the chapel.
Too bad she's a trucker called Burl.

The blind poet loved epithets: Dawn
Rosy-fingered; Persephone, wan
(Okay, pale); Zeus, the mighty;
The fair Aphrodite;
Epithetically, Homer sang on.

Clever cactus wren's home's a saguaro.
From a cholla this smart bird will borrow
Its long, stinging spines,
And with these the bird lines
Her nest's entry, to enemies' sorrow.

In some parts of the world the earth's crust
Has to give or its surface will bust.
Tectonic plates press
On each other. This stress
Crustal movement creates — dust to dust.

For computing an AND, build a gate;
Give it inputs A, B (equal weight).
If both inputs are one,
So's the output, else none.
For a NAND, it's the opposite state.

My extremities all have turned blue,
My toes and my fingertips, too.
They're so far from the fire
Of my heart, they'll expire
From exposure. Then what'll I do?

Young Carel Fabritius shone
As a pupil of Rembrandt, but on
One grim Monday, a blast
Flattened Delft; now the past
Claims his paintings—like Carel, they're gone.

Chuck Berry's first hit, "Maybellene,"
Helped to launch the whole rock 'n' roll scene.
Teens were getting their kicks
With his lyrics and licks
And his showmanship's duck-walk routine.

In scenarios somewhat surreal,
Blast-proof silos are built to conceal
Skulking ICBMs,
Whose launch surely condemns
Stricken folk to a deadly ordeal.

Gather 'round this electric invention!
It improves health and muscular tension
Through induced stimulation
Known as faradization,
Curing ills far too sundry to mention!

The Soul Stirrers had as their lead
Young Sam Cooke, a great talent indeed.
When pop music called,
Some in gospel's crowd bawled
'Cause they knew with that voice he'd succeed.

Can the ages make stone out of wood?
And that change — is it bad? Is it good?
What might prove that it's possible
For trees to be fossible?
A dendrolite certainly could.

For romance, there is nothing that's greater
Than a moonlit night helping to bait her.
But if truth's to be told,
Half the orb's icy cold,
And it's full of depression — each crater.

I was critical, toeing the ledge
Between health and becoming a veg.
On TV?  The election.
The final projection
Has pushed me right over the edge.

In Glasgow, a roofer named Jeeves
Paves the roadways—both tasks he achieves.
For the proof, in this town,
Just look up and look down.
He constructs both macadams and eaves.

You would like to shout out, "Shut yer traps!"
To those dim-witted bloggers, perhaps?
But you're typing, and so
There's just one way to go:
SHOW YOU'RE ANGRY BY USING ALL CAPS.

The banana tastes lovely and fruity,
Though I'll add (as my teacherly duty)
That it grows on a herb.
Since the flavour's superb,
In a coffee cream pie it's a beauty.

While sharing a pint by the Liffey,
My pal Biff said, "I'll just be a jiffy.
Need a dump. Where's the head?"
So I pointed, and said:
"There's the jacks (for you, Yank, that's a biffy)."

When I think of Dinichthys, I wish
I could actually catch such a fish,
But this kin of the gar
Is a fossil and far
From a fish for a dish that's delish.

Thomas Jefferson's jokes? They were whoppers!
But George Washington's always were toppers.
Still ol' George could be curt,
Knowing humor can hurt:
"Break no jests, please, concerning my choppers."

Bantham beach on those hot hazy days
Encourages soft, lazy ways.
There are surfers and swimmers
And sunshine that glimmers
On sea as we laze in warm rays.

The cushat is one kind of dove.
You can see it in flight up above
Southeast England—and there
Called a culver. Not rare,
It's abundant, and native thereof.

Warm the cockles, they say, of one's heart.
Mollusks?  No.  The ventricular part
(From corrupting the Latin
Term cochleae).  That, in
A snail shell, explains it.  Feel smart?

In an Area of Outstanding Beauty,
I naturally think it's our duty
To keep gardens neat,
So's they look and smell sweet
And in keeping, all flowery and fruity.

I think I'm a pretty good sport,
And to anger I seldom resort,
So when Dad was arrested
I calmly requested
A full circumstantial report.

"Good morning. It's time for your nap.
Just relax, please. (Nurse, tighten that strap.)
There is no need to yelp.
We are all here to help
You, electroconvulsively." (ZZZAP!)

There's a minimum number of hues
That to colour a graph you must use.
Since it's points you may mean
Or the lines in between,
There are two of these values, so choose.

In the anno hegirae's beginning,
The Prophet thought people were sinning.
He from Mecca set forth
To Medina up north
To continue his message most winning.

Fragrant strawberries sold in my store
All have eight sets of chromosomes. More
Sets in some types are found,
But they're not all around.
Many others have two, six or four.

The prince took his court to the zoo,
Where he tried to impress the whole crew
By annoying a lion,
Who ate the young scion.
He died asininely—boo hoo!

When your sides, left and right, have ataxia,
Diataxia's ruined eupraxia.
If no cure is expected,
Muscle balance is wrecked. It
Won't foster a calm ataraxia.

Our old granny is nothing but heart;
Spreading love is the height of her art.
She's a cuddly old doter,
Close family promoter,
And really can't tell us apart.

In N'Awlins, their restaurants chic
Serve coffee that ain't for the meek:
Citrus/sugar/spice. Ooh!
Brandy-flamed devil's brew,
They call café brûlot diabolique.

You won't see this brooch every day.
It is made of a fine cloisonné—
Colors bound to the metal,
As bright as a petal—
My lover just threw it away.

Life's not fair! For a long time I've felt
Less than pleased with the cards I've been dealt;
But I've no time for wishing,
As I earn my bread fishing
For caplin (akin to the smelt).

My dad is a sports-score recorder,
Both in Texas and south of the border.
His most boring of chores?
He'll chronologize scores
In an accurate time-sequence order.

So eccentrically gifted this clan,
The Phelpses: they're mad to a man.
Unconventional? Yah!
With a dress sense bizarre
And a penchant for any strange plan.

A classifier separates grades
Of material as it cascades
Through a series of screens—
Things from boulders to beans.
It's a tool used in numerous trades.

While I'm sipping an exquisite sherry,
Yvette, my French maid, stops to tarry.
With her voice a soft purr:
"Are you comfortable, sir?"
As she peels me a grape, I say, "Very."

He's a plagiarist, yep, born and bred.
Not a word that he's written or said
(All his speeches and jokes—
Works of other good folks)
Has ever come out of his head!

Bowled a no-ball (i.e. not legit)?
Then the very next ball's a free hit.
You can give it a clout
With no chance to be out
Leg before, bowled or caught.  This is it!

She sucks up to the boss, see her fall
All over him — how she's the gall ...!
She cajoles, brings him tea,
Almost screams, "Look at me —
See, I'll just lick your boots while I crawl."

In his undershirt, puffing a stogie,
He goes on about Mickey and Yogi.
He's lost most of his hair
(In his ears it's still there).
All the signs say that Ed's an old fogey.

There once was a man from Touraine
Who arranged (x, y) pairs on the plane.
His plots were so clever,
Analytic would ever
Geometry's forename remain.

An eclecticist really won't care
If your music collection's from there
Or from here, much less whether
You pieced it together
With Beethoven right next to Cher.

The sports who go canyoning deem
It extreme—both a rush and a scream:
Find a whitewater run
And jump in—oh, what fun
As you float on your back down the stream!

Hero poets (The Optimists) flourished,
All opulent, sleek and well-nourished.
In the gloom, out of work,
We (The Doomed) poets lurk
We're — we never can rhyme — disencouraged.

Got a home that's on wheels (my retreat).
Found a job that I knew would be sweet.
I'm a camp host. It's fun!
It's my duty to run
This small campground—that's no easy feat.

It contains but a paltry amount —
With no flow, like a waterless fount.
"Service charges are due,"
Says the bank, "or we'll sue."
I say hands off my dormant account.

"Meet my date, Dad. You might have objection:
A correctioner's gained my affection."
"Well, that doesn't sound bad.
You're an editor, lad?"
"No, I'm held in a house of correction."

Your belching and farting and grunts
Are insulting. I tire of your stunts.
  You're a rude and crude dude
  Who eats food in the nude!
I find many and sundry affronts.

Our soldier has now become justice,
As clever and rich as Augustus.
Rack of lamb with mint jelly
Fills his burgeoning belly;
Of all ages, this one's the robustest!

"A delightable child!" lied she,
While holding the boy on her knee
As he kicked, screamed, and bit.
And his mother, the twit,
Beamed with pride and did not disagree.

Is Pam damaged by cold? That's cryopathy.
In the hand that I hold? That's acropathy.
Those frostbitten fingers—
The memory lingers.
Pam's knuckles? A painful arthropathy!

Irrevocable destiny calls;
We're in thrall to the way the die falls.
It's our lot, it's our fate;
There's a date that can't wait.
It's our doom to succumb to life's squalls.

BTH: what you don't want to do.
If the patient finds out, he will sue.
If you bury the hatchet,
You'd best damn well catch it.
Let admin find out and you're through.

He is Deus revealed, but the span
Of our minds is too small; cannot scan.
What is knowable's small;
God's transcendent: is All.
He's absconditus — hidden from man.

In the loo, Lottie sat on the pot.
Some things pleased her and others did not.
While the cottony paper
Was soft—wouldn't scrape her—
The cold tap would often run hot.

If others determined before
That five strokes are a "par" target score
For this golf hole, your three
Are an eagle. But, gee,
My "ostrich" means seventeen more.

Don't think cloud eggs have ever been laid
In the skies. But they're easily made
In an oven at brunch.
Serve some up by the bunch;
They'll not long remain brightly arrayed.

By earning a bachelor of arts,
You exhibit the requisite smarts
To absorb the B.S.
(For an A.B., no less!)
That a college professor imparts.

For baking potatoes, what's greater
Than aluminum foil 'round your tater?
I'm cooking one now
In my microwave.  Wow!
That's one hell of a light show creator!

When you look at a map, please don't fail
To take notice, and heed the bar scale;
Or you'll walk (here's the rub)
Seven miles to that pub —
And twice that far back, feeling frail.

My relative's calling the fuzz in,
But why? Cuz I cheated a dozen
Poor folks with a scam?
No, I'm stuck in this jam
Cuz I cozened my very own cousin!

When in Belgium, a source of vexation:
To speak Flemish or French? Just one nation?
Yes, Fleming/Walloon,
Are united — in tune,
Praising Stella. That's unification!

A smart-aleck fellow named Treigle
Liked to lie and defraud and finagle.
While pretending to be
Deep and sensitive, he
Turned out centerless, just like a bagel.

Use the number that's named for Alfvén
To make sense of the plasma domain.
When the value is low,
Expect laminar flow.
When it's higher, see turbulence reign.

Times are hard, but we'll manage, my dear.
We're not too badly off, though I fear
Things could get rather grave,
But let's scrimp and let's save,
Sell your golf clubs and—strange, he's not here!

Since their Savior had cleansed from within
Any taint of original sin,
Ancient Adamites' loathing
For sin (and for clothing)
Was shamelessly shown with their skin.

Penelope's spouse liked to stray.
He betrayed her one night. The next day,
She, enraged, hollered, "Dipstick!"
And why? Collared lipstick.
That giveaway gave him away.

Fred's a fossil; he lives in the past.
He cries "Zounds!" and "Gadzooks!" when aghast
At this century's life.
With his drum and his fife
(And his wife) he's now happy at last.

Antihuman? How could you—you beast!
Please consider our good points, at least.
We're industrious, smart,
And we've made some nice art—
You would miss us if we were deceased.

I await the alarm clock's shrill tug,
But I'm snug as a bug in a rug.
Pillow's soft, duvet's warm,
Feel her nightie-clad form
In this cosiness — give her a hug.

Artemisia abrotanum? Oh, dear!
It's a wormwood once used to make beer.
This American plant
(I say southernwood) can't
Get my old man much drunker, I fear.

Much Charophyta lore's of dense stamp.
But let's ask—are these algae all damp?
Or were botanists snobs,
Quickly classing wet blobs
As "not land shrubs"? Depends on your camp.

Bought an eyebar, I thought, but my friend
Said, "Your eyebar's not real, it's pretend!
Charlie, your  bar's a tiebar —
But my bar's an eyebar
With eyes at both this and that end."

To avoid economic stagnation
As well as high rates of inflation,
We ought to give thanks
For the Fed's (central bank's)
Central role in the prime rate's creation.

My tissue is quite fibroblastic,
And my wound's quickly turning euplastic.
What was once a deep lesion
Is now just an adhesion.
The pace of my healing?  Fantastic!

On a visit to see my friend Tammy
(The most talented chef in Miami),
I was lovingly fed
Fried cassava-based bread.
It was yummy! She called it a bammy.

"Deposition of acid," you say?
Will it answer a lawyer today?
Oh, you mean when the rain
Brings pollution, a bane
For the Earth there's no wishing away.

I'll bear off, so I don't scrape that boulder.
Current's strong, so I'll brace with my shoulder…
It worked, as expected,
But still, I'm dejected:
My aches say I am getting older.

I've a pistol I keep out of sight,
A derringer, tiny and light.
No blast-you-out rocket,
It fits in my pocket —
My block's somehow safer at night.

I don't care what Miss Poppins has said
About treating a cold in the head!
With a cupful of sugar,
It would still taste like booger.
I think I'd be better off dead!

To deceive us, our poppa was itchin'.
One day he went into the kitchen,
And when no one was lookin',
He did all the cookin'—
Us kids never noticed the switchin'!

In the clubhouse, our dog made a lunge
At Mike, who was dressed in pure grunge.
When our mascot dislikes
Members' outfits (like Mike's),
From our roll, those guys'  names we dispunge.

-ful's a suffix, in adjectives seen,
Meaning "full of" or so, nice and clean.
We know mournful and hateful
And scornful and grateful —
A handful? No, many. Umpteen!

When, in Bringing Up Father, Jiggs won
Loads of money, his woes had begun.
His major (corned) beef
Was he had no relief—
Maggie's missiles he'd never outrun.

My first glimpse of the soft metal frame
Sealed my fate in the church window game.
Though I don't attend mass,
I make brilliant stained glass.
First I saw, then I conquered the came.

As the water swirls down from your drain,
Give a thought to its rush through the main.
Have you ductile iron pipe?
That's the flexible type,
Which they claim will stand up to the strain.

In caves across latter-day France,
The aurochs and mammoth still dance
Across ochre-drawn walls:
In these ancestors' halls,
Artists hunted the heart of our chance.

Breaking into the house as we slept
He was clumsy and loud as he crept—
Hit his head on our bed.
When we wakened, he fled.
Guess his burgling was bungling (inept).

When my lord gallops off to the fight,
Under  escuage I'll be his knight
With my sword and my horse
(At no wages, of course).
I may sleep with his daughter for spite.

Kick the can down the road—that's the plan:
Stick the war mess on some other man.
Wreak much havoc abroad
And at home. Oh my Gawd!
Then say, "Catch! Fix Iraq and Iran."

A befuddled old doctor named Dillon
Bemoaned being classed as a villain.
Yes, he did lose a few,
But he knew what he knew,
And that didn't include penicillin.

A banker's acceptance, a debt,
Is a guaranteed profit, you bet.
If the debtor defaults,
Then the bank and its vaults
Make it good (so let George Bailey fret!).

For counterinsurgents, Iraq
Is a place where there's no turning back.
If insurgents succeed,
Goes the theory, we'll bleed
'Cause we'll always be under attack.

Though my father might glower or glare,
It is not in his nature to swear.
Damn and blast or hells' bells
Are the worst words he yells,
And to utter such oaths is so rare.

Acinetobacter germs are scelestic
And thrive in surroundings domestic:
Don't fear penicillin,
Love hospital chillin',
And plague the immunodeprestic.

Consumerization is taking
Your goods or your products and making
Them highly available,
Massively saleable,
Appealing, but not budget-breaking.

They'd configured their plan in detail—
Laid the specs out for Jonah. The sale
Of their advert campaign
Then went through, in the main,
Because Jonah had swallowed their whale.

Not the usual kind to complain,
I can't take this emotional pain.
I've been sullied, defiled, 	
And distained by her wild
Accusations—your mother's insane!

Jean-Jacques' death was a terrible blow.
He left all of his mistresses dough.
They debated all night—
How to bury him right—
As they wanted the rite comme il faut.

The Colonial family knew
That the shrubs and the pitch pine that grew
On their land offered light
When the dusk turned to night—
That a candlewood candle would do.

She wore a commode on her head.
(You read right; that is just what I said.)
Wire frames such as these
For "big hair" devotees
Were in vogue and their use was widespread.

Ending sixty-six days on harsh seas,
Fraught with bitter cold winds and disease,
All the Pilgrims on board
(With the Mayflower moored)
Prayed to God and gave thanks on their knees.

Both eyes on one side of her face?
For the halibut, then, I gave chase.
I was sure I had found 'er,
But started to flounder:
There's flatfish all over the plaice!

Eau de nil? Zero water it's not;
It's a color you're likely to spot
When you, cruising the Nile,
Take a look for a while
On the surface surrounding your yacht.

I was nervous, and cried when doc said,
"Your packed bowels mean trouble ahead.
It was June twenty-third
That you last passed a turd,
So, egest a bunch soon, or you're dead."

Our school's chess team is split; it's dirempt.
Half the kids are unruly, unkempt,
Disrespectful, depraved;
Half are neat, well-behaved.
Reunite them? Not worth the attempt.

A family-man is a crim,
And a family-woman's like him.
They will rob poor old grans,
And for grand crimes make plans
(But commit petty thefts on a whim).

vi? Not for me. I'm a fool.
Prefer Emacs — a WYSIWYG tool.
Meta this, Control that!
From inside it I cat,
Code, compile, build and run. Very cool.

Though an ambulance comes when you're ill,
Or have had a bad accident—still,
I will never take part
In a sport (cross my heart)
Where one's parked at the foot of a hill.

Acetyl CoA is required
When a two-carbon fragment's desired:
Biosyntheses that
Make a steroid or fat
Have such two-carbon transfers hard-wired.

On my ballot is printed, in red,
The name of a man who is dead,
But I feel I must choose
And I just can't refuse,
So I'll vote for the live one instead.

There's a term to be seen and not heard
In this verse, which at first seems absurd.
Think of weaving a chair
With a wickerwork flair.
Can ingeniousness dig up the word?

Her evening gown stretched to the floor,
So all wondered whose pumps the star wore:
Bruno Maglis or Choos?
Perhaps Blahnik's chic shoes.
Stunning threads—but they'd kill to see more.

Equidifferent — what could this be?
Take three numbers, say a, b and c.
Now if a minus b
Equals b minus c,
Than they're it. And that's all. QED.

It's a round bunch or cluster, dear class;
It's a globular body, or mass
That is rounded. Did you
Know these meanings of clew?
You must study your books to surpass!

If you deign to use words such as boff,
Then polite folks may shudder and cough.
 This indelicate word
 Means that sex has occurred,
And most likely, that someone got off.

A coccid's a bug that stays still. It
Disguises itself lest you kill it.
If you're in its proximity
It maintains anonymity,
Sucking plant juices in, just to fill it.

The union's top leadership rages:
"We've been fighting the owner for ages!
Well, we workers won't work
Till he signs (the big jerk!)
A collective agreement on wages."

Whenever a voice of authority
Claims to speak for the silent majority,
Is it merely a ruse—
An attempted excuse—
For ignoring a vocal minority?

When a mammal's cetaceous, it means
It's aquatic, like humpbacks, baleens,
Or belugas—all whales.
Horizontal, flat tails
Are propelling these swimming machines.

I was plagued by a terrible itch
That was making me fidget and twitch.
But my scratching created
An itch aggravated;
Turns out Mom was right, the old witch.

When Enola Gay entered the fray
In the sky near Hiroshima Bay,
It destroyed the whole town
And cut many folks down:
Roughly seventy thousand, they say.

John set out to end Benjamin's life
Having learned that Ben slept with his wife.
Though it clearly sounds odd,
It's the truth, swear to God:
John went gunning for Ben with a knife.

When I'm browsing my atlas collection,
And I can't quite recall what direction
That place is from there,
Compass roses show where,
So it's easy to see the connection.

She encountered a cowardly lion,
And accouraged him, "Stop all that cryin'."
 Yet discouraged by fears,
 He could not stop his tears.
Lacking courage, he said, "Hey, I'm tryin'!"

If I'm pressed, I'll be forced to confess
I'm in favor of color excess.
Starlight's hue, I adjust,
Since it's reddened by dust
That the spaces between us possess.

When the medical arts were aborning,
Aesculapius gave us a warning.
This demigod (Greek)
Was the first doc to speak:
"Take this bolus and call in the morning."

Uncle Chip is a great double-dipper—
Has a pension, and works as a skipper
On a county-owned boat.
He's a crafty old goat,
But I'll have  to admit the guy's chipper.

The Amish live simply and well.
As builders they truly excel.
They begin at first light
And they work until night,
Raising barns up without raising hell.

It seems Jacob's again in a pout—
He has lost all his humorous clout.
He can verbally jab
And sarcastically stab,
But can't take what he's quick to dish out.

In the garden stood Laura and Ed.
"Please be mine," he adoringly said,
"Though I've no Diamond ring,
It's my Heart that I bring!"
Then a Club from her Spade struck him dead.

We wor off teur t' match, then uz bro
Said, "My car key's gone missin, oh blow!
Well ah'm flummoxed", cried 'e,
"Wheear on earth can it be?
I just 'ed it eur secon' ago!"

From Bangkok we opted to fly
On Air India straight to Mumbai.
On that sweltering flight,
We had nary a bite
'Cause they served only curry and Thai.

You can cruise on the sea in your yacht,
Ply the waters from Cannes to Rabat.
You might stop for a short
Bit of time in a port,
But your aim is to sail, is it not?

Your old man was a crook, and I see
That the nut falls not far from the tree.
You exhibit the traits
Of your father.  The Fates
Say no use should you try to break free.

"Here are six separate words with a joint
Definition. Which should we anoint?
How should cuspate be rated?
And how cuspidated?"
I reply, "Will you come to the point?"

While Bill Aberhart promised he'd care
And find welfare for all from thin air,
His design of "free money"
Was censured as "funny"—
The Court said "Oh no, don't you dare!"

There's a climate emergency?  Hah.
Global warming?  To that, I say bah!
Such concerns I've rejected.
What's first?  Get elected!
Save earth, and not me?  No way, nah.

A coach is decanting its load
Of old men on the verge of the road,
Where it's parked by the sea.
Oh! They've stopped for a pee.
What a sight! Now my eyes might explode.

Cap-a-pie means "from head down to toes,"
From the French, as my friend Yvette knows.
When she asked me to tea
In the nude, cap-a-pie,
She was jesting with me, I suppose.

Club yachts fly their burgees with pride.
Ours is green, with an anchor beside
A symbolic white shield
On a swallow-tailed field,
Gracing lanyards from Portsmouth to Ryde.

Diaplasis means setting a bone
(That has snapped, since you're accident-prone)
Or a joint dislocation.
For a quick consultation,
Call 9-1-1, now, on your phone.

Channel stuffing is when a producer
Ships product much faster and looser
Than merchants can sell it.
As retailers tell it,
"This stuff I'm returning to you, sir."

I have always enjoyed Capri Sun,
A soft drink implying "clean fun".
The firm that produces
A wide range of juices
By a "Call from the WILD" now is run.

Brad and Chad, two bright carpenter lads,
Sought an adze in the classified ads.
Although they persisted,
There weren't any listed.
Said Brad, "Let's just borrow your dad's."

This adverb means nothing but "coldly",
But I failed to define the word boldly.
My friend Lee, standing rigidly,
Asked about frigidly,
So that's what I frostily told Lee.

Papers shrivel, writhe, steam (so we learn),
Then, at Fahrenheit 451, burn.
Thus Ray Bradbury wrote,
And the title I quote
Of his novel whose pages I turn.

Since the number of phones will explode,
We should hazard a look down the road
And agree, me and you,
That we simply can't do
With a three-digit area code.

See the sides of the gables? Beware!
Simply décor are crow steps up there
Where the birds often rest,
But for safety, it's best
That just avian weight's all they bear.

At the pub, I embarked on a quest:
Just what makes a best bitter the best?
And I learned—what the devil?—
It's the alcohol level.
No one cares how the taste is assessed.

An opera singer named Queenie
Put on Turandot, sung in Chimwini;
"I do what I can to
Enlighten the Bantu,"
Said she, "And they quite like Puccini."

The convention was well underway
When the delegate stood up to say,
"He hails from our state.
Yes, our homeboy is great!
For our favorite son, we vote "yea."

I am one of those motor-car fops
(Lamborghini, Ferrari). The cops
Have just caught me for speeding;
To jail they are leading
Me. (Once I'm encaged, story stops.)

This man-about-town's finest features
Were his femorals, viz., knee-length breeches
Much-worn in past days.
Yes, his Renaissance ways
Made him one of L.A.'s oddest creatures.

I'm denouncing (So please, turn the mike on!)
Flagrant falsehoods, like 'No K in Nikon'.
Ditto: 'No X in Nixon'.
As well, get a fix on —
You're misguided by 'No C in icon'.

When I cut through the trunk of the tree,
There was something quite puzzling to me.
Though I'm only a layman,
I found the duramen—
The heartwood. It's dead wood, you see.

The salt for my corned beef: a dash of it?
Brine, but how much? Just a splash of it?
Now I've botched the whole thing—
Spuds and onions I'll bring
And toss in. Yes, I just made a hash of it.

As she steered her new car off the drive,
Her sense of the way took a dive;
Seems her trip would unravel:
"It's better to travel
Expectantly, than to arrive."

What can you do for a lark?
Camp out in Yosemite Park!
You'll toss away cares
When you sleep among bears
And watch chipmunks dart out before dark.

Since the Mets were so bad it was scary,
Harry Chiti was right to feel wary.
This poor catcher was shamed:
Who's the guy not then named
To complete this sad trade? It was Harry!

If you're known as a criminal guy
To 'the Feds' — say, a fraudster or spy —
They'll be soon on your tail,
Track you down without fail.
That's the job of the States' FBI.

Adjustable styles a device
Or a tool (to be clear and precise)
When it can be redone
To serve more ends than one —
And without any increase in price.

Who was Didymus? Name ring a bell?
Here's a hint: Jesus Christ knew him well.
He's a symbol for doubting
Who ended up shouting:
"My Lord and my God," John did tell.

With a databack, photos are dated,
A nice gimmick I call overrated:
The damn imprint's annoying,
Too often destroying
The shot. Still, most function as stated.

I was interviewed then by this schmuck up
In HR, Mr. Steele, really stuck up.
It is not the BQ
(Or "Best Qualified") who
Will be hired, I'm sure.  It's the suck-up.

Some called Diamond Jim Brady bizarre
For his appetites—well above par.
He was rich, through and through,
A philanthropist, too,
And the first guy in town with a car.

It's authentic and wondrously made,
But there's cankerfret: copper's decayed.
Arm & Hammer could clean
What's not meant to be green,
Although maybe you're fond of that shade.

If a person who dies without heirs
Owned property — houses or shares,
It is us you should call
To take care of it all,
For Bona Vacantia cares!

Dual-purpose means two functions fit:
A long sock makes a scarf (or stretched mitt);
Bowl's a hat for my hair,
And a shelf makes a chair...?
I'll go butter my bump. (That shelf split.)

To forestall the great stigma of AIDS,
Kindly doctors played kindly charades:
Death certificates said
Why these people were dead —
Deuteropathies killed them, in spades.

As acorns grow up into oaks,
As wee mates grow up into blokes,
Our output evolves,
Bad meter resolves—
But some rhymes still wind up bad jokes.

In this vector space, product formation
Is a highly complex operation.
We'll be making a case
That some real-valued space
Was enhanced by complexification.

They were opposites, true, she and Jacques,
But attract? No, that saying's a crock.
"We're just ships," said the lass,
"In the night. We will pass."
Slyly smiling, he countered: "Let's dock."

Falanaka — oh boy, what a name!
Fanaloka — that's almost the same.
Madagascar's their ground;
They're like civets, we've found;
And survival's their ultimate aim.

Her body draped neatly in lace,
She beauteously dances — what grace!
Watch her twirl through the air,
This young lady so fair—
But that tramp stamp's a bit out of place.

The party who promised a crackdown
On crooks now explain that's a track down
Which we shouldn't go,
But they'd like you to know
That it's not in the slightest a backdown.

Dirty Dan glued a car from a friend.
One day later his crime spree would end
When the law, Sheriff Fred,
Glued his ass and then said,
"In the hoosegow you're gonna be penned."

I plant poplars in rows for effect,
The branches all upright, erect:
This fastigiate stance
Of the trees will enhance
My decrepit old house, I expect.

Alimentally stuffed full of food,
I'm afraid, Al, this may appear rude,
But my stomach objects
To your offer of sex.
Al, I'm mentally not in the mood.

That a girl's polyandrous implies
That she's mated with two or more guys.
Is diandrous our cue
That she'd screw only two?
No! A plant with two stamens. Surprise!

This executive officer's chief.
At our firm he's the giver of grief.
He's the boss, runs the show—
On his door's CEO.
Give his name when the customers beef.

While she's driving, the blonde's one desire
Is that nothing too dire will transpire.
When her GPS crowed,
"There's a fork in the road,"
Cried the blonde, "That could puncture my tire!"

A poet whose work could use trimming
Met a hero whose deeds deserved hymning,
And a twelve-thousand-word
Epic poem occurred,
Which our schoolchildren soon will be skimming!

When Sir Lancelot glanced at the sky
And he spied a gold cup floating by,
He then lowered his shield,
And, with reverence, squealed,
"Holy Grail, angel-borne from on high!"

When better comportment is found
In the way folks behave all around
At the sites on the Net,
Pigs will fly, and I'll bet
Such deportment will surely astound.

There's smooth ice, and it's time for a skate.
Grab my gloves and my toque; I don't wait.
A long slide as I glide;
With the snowbank collide ...
Stand back up for a great figure 8.

A companion, old Rome would've said,
Is a person with whom you break bread.
But our more recent ways
Favor overnight stays—
And she'll likely want breakfast in bed.

My cat stole some tuna and bread
And parked it on top of my bed.
I was caught unawares
(Who has picnics upstairs?)
And reclined on my kitty's bed spread.

French cricket is more of a game
Than a sport. Here the bowler takes aim
At the legs of the batter
(There are no stumps to scatter).
Compared to "real" cricket it's tame.

When K. Rudd said "Fair shake of the sauce
Bottle", Aussies reacted, with force.
"What'll Kevin say next?
He's a dork!" (We were vexed.)
"Kev, fair go. Don't say 'shake'. ('Suck', of course.)"

Albert Victor died much too young, sadly;
His fiancée, sweet May, grieved him madly.
Said his brother, "Don't fret,
I'll be king now, my pet."
And George married the bride-to-be, gladly.

The dahoon is a south U.S. shrub
That grows in the forest and scrub.
It has leaves of dark green,
And red berries are seen—
Watch out for that sharp, spiny nub!

These twins of mine love to ignore
Me when "Into bed, NOW!" I implore.
Laughing "Later!" delayingly,
They resume, disobeyingly,
Lipsticking art on the floor.

Hinge and Bracket's performance portrayed
Two 'Dear Ladies'. Both sang and one played
The piano. They dwelt
In retirement and felt
That their glory days never would fade.

The Anderson shelter was used
By a people acutely abused
By the horrors of war
And the German Air Corps.
But surrender?  The British refused!

Your sales scheme bears promise and clout,
But it's only bare bones; flesh it out.
Add substance and detail
To show how a retail
Sales bump from that plan comes about.

We kept climbing, I'll never know how
In the death zone past twenty-six thou.
Many haven't survived
Who've been O2 deprived.
Still, astoundingly, here we stand now.

Chorizema (Aussie flame pea)
Is not what I thought it would be —
Which was sausages (Spanish)
That cause (or that banish)
The urge to scratch bits you can't see.

A banana seat's useful on bikes,
For it cradles a part which dislikes
Getting spanked, pricked, and poked.
Wicked thoughts I've provoked?
Seems I don't speak for everyone — yikes!

The gymnast worked out her routine,
Till a drunk, out of drink, hit the scene
Saying, "Balance would be
Such a new thing for me;
If I try your gym beam, will I lean?"

Clientele are investors, in fact.
Some seek income; some, growth will attract.
Change your policy? Well,
The effect is: they sell —
And that means that your share price gets whacked.

In a plant, an accessory cell
Can protect and rebuff and repel.
(Though "a phone that you choose
'Cause it goes with your shoes"
Is a good definition as well.)

I came on to Marie in my car,
But she found my behavior bizarre,
Saying, "Didn't you know
We're just friends?  We can't go
Any further.  That bridge is too far."

In spite of hard work and ambition,
I can't seem to gain recognition.
I'll never advance;
They won't give me a chance!
I am stuck in a dead-end position.

See Asgard, the multiringed basin,
With walls never touched by a mason.
We're out of brochures,
But our Jovian tours
Of Callisto fill quickly, so hasten!

We have no written bylaws—it's strange;
But my lawyer can quickly arrange
To collect and to codify
Rules we can modify
Later—they're subject to change.

A raw crepance is simply a sore
Caused by horseshoe or hoof  — and what's more,
It's a wound self-inflicted;
Some say it's restricted
To the hind legs and seldom the fore.

"I'm a class act," she boasts as we natter.
I tell her, "My darling, you flatter;
You're phony. In fact,
It's the former you've lacked—
Though you've certainly put on the latter."

It is evening out West. Let us go
Find the little white phlox that I know
Blooms at dusk with a hint
Of the evening's own tint,
Washing foothills in white: evening snow.

An aqueduct's built to convey
The rainfall that fell far away.
Whether raised up on high,
Or unseen by the eye,
The water flows through, come what may.

Switch it on: electricity flows
As a current called amps and it shows
On a meter. But then
Multiply it by ten—
You've an abamp (that's when the fuse blows).

While in London (last summer's vacation),
I went to Victoria Station.
There I dug a depression
As a form of expression—
Was it holey?  No, just concavation.

To measure the angle of dip,
Some captains saw fit to equip
Their ships with aesthetic
Contraptions magnetic.
The dip circle helped guide the trip.

Seems I pay for each date; that's too much,
As you're leaning on me—I'm a crutch.
Let's continue to see
One another, but, gee,
We can each pay for half; we'll go Dutch.

Our airplane's last engine is stalling.
From the sky, we are rapidly falling!
Yet, the look on your face
Is of bliss, peace, and grace...
You've a calmness I find quite appalling!

Like a tortoiseshell tool for the hair,
It's designed with a classical flair.
Fine Windsor-type styling
Some feel is beguiling.
Your comb-back's a time-tested chair.

In this city, my uncle is mayor.
My aunt is D. Trump's chief purveyor,
But my cousin's a brawler,
A battler, a mauler;
They refer to him as an "affrayer."

As the fault he divined grabbed attention,
An idea in his mind took dimension:
A concept, a notion
That starts things in motion
And eventually leads to invention.

When the term chimney breast was first spoken,
I'm sure that some wiseacre broke in:
"That's a wall that extends
'Round a fireplace, friends,
Not a ta-ta incredibly smokin'!"

Don't like facets? Then leave them alone;
Grind some cabs (most are domed) from your stone.
When stone's slabbed and cabbed well,
Buyers hurry, pell-mell,
And you fast become very well-known.

To the Moon! What a challenge! Who'd land
On it first? JFK played his hand.
Though the Soviets led,
NASA soon forged ahead.
And the Eagle? The winner, as planned.

These bees' stingers have barbs. Nope, not funny.
And, whether it's cloudy or sunny,
Tribe Apini spends hours
Getting pollen from flowers
Which is why it is hairy-eyed, honey.

I am writing this check for my niece.
She is known as a fine cantatrice,
And her voice is the rage
When she sings on the stage.
(But she can't meet the terms of her lease!)

I'm constructing a two-car garage
Of a masonry known as blocage.
Inexpensive and rough,
Still, it's rigid enough
(With a backing of strong decoupage).

I demanded my money emphatically.
The agent replied bureaucratically:
"Don't go postal, my friend.
You'll be paid in the end—
Maybe next year." He smiled enigmatically.

"My bride!" cried good Robin, with glee,
"Is Maid Marian, fair as can be!
Friar Tuck, I'd like you
To marry us two."
Said the monk, "No, I'm celibate, me!"

Boyd Bennett appeared on the scene
With His Rockets.  The song?  "Seventeen."
Then a sound-alike song
Made the charts (not as strong).
After that, though, the teens?  None too keen.

If you've got a weak ticker, beware,
And when shovelling snow, do take care.
I just finished my drive;
Now I'm scarcely alive.
The whole process was rough, a real bear.

Great whisky begins with a brew
Of barley and water, yeast too.
Next it's off to the still—
Take a barrel and fill—
While the flavours imbue, brew anew.

Public servants all know, if they're hip,
Post-retirement, you may double-dip
If your work's deemed essential.
The drill is (sequential):
Retire; get rehired. It's a rip!

The cop on the road flagged me down
(Made me stop) as I drove out of town.
Apparently thinking
That I had been drinking,
He tested my breath with a frown.

You ask me my aim? To find fame!
On TV! You will all know my name!
Though I'm lazy, and fat,
I can't act, and sing flat,
What's the problem—I'll still win this game!

"Of big words you have more than your ration.
They cause bafflement  — fog, obfuscation.
They have got me in tears!"
"I shall calm all your fears
Once you cease the profuse lacrimation."

Angkorian god-kings of old
Ruled an empire of splendour untold.
Ancient temples abide,
Reawakening pride
As the hopes of a nation unfold.

For hunting this loud horn was born.
It was called by the Brits a "French horn".
Fixed-length-tube cors de chasse
Were a pain in the ass;
Did Brits blame that on somebody foreign?

For endurance, it's denim, a twill,
Or a somewhat less chic cotton drill.
Demand leg wear and sleeves
Made of plain, trusty weaves
From an old and dependable mill.

When Dad would go off on a bender,
Mom's budget would get very slender.
She'd feed us on rice,
And canned corn at low price,
And use soy beans—a meatloaf extender.

Shorter day length? Too dry or too cold?
Then this beetle puts living on hold.
As conditions improve,
It gets back in the groove.
Such is diapause: progress controlled.

It is best not to mock, condescend,
When you emendate (edit, amend)
The new textbook created
By a guy she once dated,
If your wife says, "Why, Fred's my best friend!"

"We'll go fly-fishing," Dad said, "at last."
"What — go fishing for flies?"  "Not so fast!
Fishers tie a disguise
To their lines: fine faux flies —
Fix those lines on light fly rods, and cast."

So how can you tell from the blue
That the earth has a field that drew
The needle around
On the compass you found?
By an aeromagnetic review!

U.S. tourists are often engrossed
By the words others use for French toast.
Many Britons, instead,
Call the stuff eggy bread—
Oui, monsieur, pain perdu—maybe most.

Fat embolism often is serious:
First a fracture, then syndromes mysterious.
Other symptoms—a medley—
Can be seen, and be deadly.
If it reaches the brain, you're delirious.

The wines we are tasting today
Have a piquant and cheeky bouquet.
One aroma is sweet,
But the other's effete.
The Verdicchio beats the rosé.

Chuck's used battery, bought for my barge?
DOA!  It was costly and large,
But had been guaranteed
For a year.  Chuck agreed
He'd replace it, brand new, free of charge.

I encountered much trouble and strife.
It was no bed of roses, my life.
Now it's highly agreeable
'Cause the foreseeable
Future has you as my wife.

Call them parasols, bumbershoots, golly!
The English stay dry with a brolly.
In the U.S., a fella
Prefers an umbrella.
In windstorms, to use one is folly.

So you planned to take all of my money,
Pack up and run out on me, honey?
Now, look what you got —
You're tied up on my yacht.
You are so disprepared it ain't funny.

Cryptomnesics? Their memories seem
Quite original.  Ergo they dream
Any theme one might mention
Is their own invention.
"You've plagiarized!" editors scream.

Near Area 51, we
Once decided to sneak in and see
If it's true that the base
Hid a UFO case.
(I would tell you, but feds made us flee.)

There's a word that shouts: "This crime is worse!"
For example, some thug steals a purse.
Does he grab it and run?
No, this punk has a gun
To intimidate, threaten, coerce.

See that column?  Lean back, but don't drop.
High above you, it comes to a stop.
At the tip, way up there,
With decorative flare,
Is the capital, bearing the top.

A detective is trailing behind me.
I assume someone's trying to find me,
But I'm already found,
So I spin right around;
He says, "Please go ahead and don't mind me."

A young armadillo's heart sank
When tricked by a really cruel prank.
He discovered too late
Friends had made him a date
With a cold, armour-plated old tank.

Some beach towns in France are such meanies:
No more fully-garbed Islamist teenies!
Seems some towns near to Cannes
Passed a dubious ban
On strange burqa/bikini burkinis.

It's abyssal, this zone of the ocean,
Deep and dark, somewhat lacking in motion
Save for these bottom-feeders
(They're stony-faced bleeders).
I gave one a kiss — no emotion.

Daddy's curry house, where I once waitered,
Still sells appams (sweet crêpes, dished and cratered).
Though we're British now — yeah, see? —
My diet is desi.
You want fish? Bombay duck's desi-catered.

My math teacher thinks it's a hoot
To insist that we take the square root
Of a negative number—
But what could be dumber
Than a value that i can't compute?

"A cordotomy treatment's too drastic!"
That's my doc and his view's inelastic.
But if pain's gone forever
When you surgically sever
Some spinal cord fibers? Fantastic!

On the steppe, long before we were born,
Roamed a beast with an eminent horn:
The elasmothere—rhino,
Or unicorn? I know,
The theory elicits some scorn.

Since my heart misses beats, I've begun
Using antiarrhythmics, class I.
I take conquinine first
(It's just quinine, reversed),
But the side-effects aren't any fun.

Ambiguity bides at the zoo—
On their signage, it's clearly in view:
 •  KEEP AWAY FROM THE CRANE
 •  THIS IS COUGAR DOMAIN
This report is equivocally true!

My scrivening just came a cropper.
I'm told capital offense ain't spelt proper.
"That's a capital offence!
Fine: one pound and eight pence —
Plus it's off with yer head with me lopper!"

What's the dormant volcano's creation?
Fertile soil which will help feed the nation.
But it sleeps. If it's rumbling,
Don't wait for the crumbling.
Eruptions bring great devastation.

Nineteen-eighty: we saw the retreat
From the neat London Street, by name Fleet,
Of the HQs, no less,
Of our national press,
To Canary Wharf. Wow, what a feat!

The east fork's what waters Mike's lea,
While the west fork keeps Peter's parch-free.
But my creek's just a trickle
And I'm caught in a pickle—
Should I corrivate both towards me?

You're a swindler, a blackleg, a crook,
And you've tried every trick in the book.
You'd ensure that you win;
Beat it now — save your skin,
And just pray to be let off the hook.

It's just fact, so there isn't a moral.
In the pollen from Hawkweed (it's floral),
Ectoaperture's bridge
Is a sexinous ridge,
So the lophate lacuna's abporal.

Dad keeps giving you more and more chores.
Is that blood that now pours from your pores?
You've cleaned windows and doors;
Washed the floors on all fours;
He's a glutton for punishment — yours.

"The extract that's called digitalin
Helps the heart," said my son-in-law Allan.
"Not employed much today,
In the past it held sway,
Though it never was used by the gallon."

My wide waist is a thing I deplore.
Finding trousers to fit's a big chore.
Nurture: ate jelly beans?
Nature: big belly genes?
I'm not sure I can stomach much more.

The twiddle's your home's appellation,
Or denotes inexact valuation.
If you aren't hard-core,
It's a bit of a snore
When it signifies bitwise negation.

Said a pious old man with a grin,
"I must seek  absolution  from sin.
On my knees in confession
I decry my transgression,
Which lets me sin freely agin!"

When you damaged my car and then ran,
You were acting the cowardly man.
Now, believe me, I'll sue
You for damages due.
I will take you for all that I can.

When he asked for my number last fall,
I kept waiting; he just didn't call;
So he left me alone
With a non-ringing phone.
I was not very happy at all.

When the blow valve stuck shut on our trip,
These worrisome  words came from skip,
"If we don't find a scheme
For releasing some steam,
Then the boiler will blow up our ship!"

At the courtroom, she tries not to smile.
Co-respondent—she's dressed to beguile—
In her seventh divorce,
She feels anguish, of course,
But celebrities do it in style.

This limerick's objective: it traces
The story of dental-type braces.
If your teeth are not straight,
Have them braced, then just wait,
And you'll see how much nicer your face is.

Entelechy means "actuality":
Not potential, but more like reality;
Not a mere possibility
Proposed with civility,
But accomplished with honest finality.

A defeat device has been installed,
So these Volkswagen cars are recalled.
This dishonest attempt
To make their cars exempt
From the smog rules means I am appalled.

At the navy's most elegant bash,
I behaved in a manner most rash.
In the midst of a dance,
To my cheeky advance,
She said, "Sir, you should polish your brash!"

My new jailer, thank goodness, is bribable,
And results are so nicely describable:
I can praise the great eats,
Sing of smuggled-in treats,
And his contraband rum is imbibable.

It's a burning and harrowing pain,
So intense I can't help but complain.
"That's causalgic distress,
But we've had some success,"
Says my doc, "by removing the brain."

In another sad mishap of Jack's,
While he's painfully playing the sax,
Here's the facts: fundamentally,
Max accidentally
Smacks out his teeth with an axe.

With medieval devices I'm thrilled,
But the prices can leave a guy chilled.
Like on eBay: a pole arm
That could sever your whole arm—
And a leg! (It's a pain getting billed.)

Ergosterol stubbornly dwells
In the membrane of all fungal cells.
It's in yeast. It's in mold.
It's the sterol, I'm told,
That an azole-based medicine quells.

Accumulation can happen between
Metabolical pathways. I mean,
You inhibit selectively
One stage most effectively.
The result? In analysis, seen.

Look! A huge stony nest, and upon it
There's a gentoo — it's got a white bonnet
And a red-orange beak
Which emits, not a squeak
But a trumpet or hiss (penguin sonnet).

Okay, boatlift those fool refugees,
But then vet them and dust them for fleas:
A few hundred, no more,
And it's just shore to shore.
If they grouse, ship them back overseas.

A young girl, with a smile quite demure,
Pirouetted in slippers, secure
In the faith she'd not lose
Either one of her shoes,
As she danced in her dainty chaussures.

The culotte (as in one) is a pair,
Or culottes are some ready to wear.
Cut to seem like a skirt,
But quite clever and pert,
These are trousers she flaunts with a flair.

A botanist studies the ways
That a plant is deserving of praise:
"See that mesh of racemes?
It is part of God's schemes,
For He works in wisteria's maze."

On a long wooden plank made for girls,
As a man pirouettes, flips and whirls,
A 5.8 quake
Makes the balance beam shake:
And he slips down spread-eagle, and hurls.

The emblements, e.g. the beans
Sowed by tenants, are theirs, like the greens,
Hops and crops that they grow;
And this rule, years ago,
Thus (semble) meant increase of means.

All planting you'd soon put a freeze on,
If your work could be lost without reason,
But emblements stop
Heirs from losing the crop
Should the life-tenant die in midseason.

Tetrodotoxin is found
In the grey side-gilled sea slug, around
The North Island, N.Z.
Slugs killed Spot really dead,
So be wary of those found aground.

The candidate's manner was fawning:
"All my wonderful friends, a new dawning
I'll bring—panaceas
And bright new ideas
I'm spawning!" The audience? Yawning.

American Gothic is good.
It's a painting by Mr. Grant Wood.
In the fourground it has
Two old farmer types as
Out in front of their farmhouse they stood.

Sally Albright was acting erratically
In the deli and writhing ecstatically.
She wanted to show
Her friend Harry that, no,
Men can't tell when gals "fake it" dramatically.

Geocentrism isn't the case.
It's the thought that the middle of space
Is the Earth. Now we know
That it just isn't so,
But it seemed to make sense on its face.

As you value my counsel the most,
I'd advise you to head for the coast.
If we stay here instead,
I'll be losing my head,
And your heinie, Your Highness, is toast!

Would you say Spencer Elden was bold
Swimming nude as he tried to get hold
Of a buck on a hook?
Though one hell of a look,
I'd say no—he was just four months old.

He's five children, two dogs, and a cat;
Loves his job, collects rugs, wears a hat.
So in short say of him
His life's filled to the brim—
And so too, I might add, is his flat.

The feijoa, a guava-like fruit
From New Zealand, has growing repute.
Aromatic and sweet,
Its liqueur can't be beat.
Try the schnapps for a singular toot.

When the tide rushes in to the shore,
Planting kisses with gushes galore,
You can barely say 'high',
Then it's waving goodbye,
And it's time for the ebbtide once more.

With this herb, it is said, folk were healed,
For its use in old texts is revealed.
But which plant was the source
Of this balin? Of course
Its identity now is concealed.

A number that's cubic? Mais oui —
For example, I think we'd agree
That the numeral eight
Was predestined by fate
To be two with the exponent three.

The cryptographers used to break codes
In their government-guarded abodes,
But today these clinicians
Are mathematicians
Protecting our credit-card lodes.

The loud part's too loud, and the quiet
Part's too quiet. Try out this diet:
The loudest bits flatten;
The quietest fatten.
But don't go too far, or we'll riot.

Caught flat-footed, stuck for an answer,
I've been beckoned then kissed by "my" dancer.
Sure, I've watched her all night
In the club's lambent light.
Now I'm stunned by the chance to romance her.

To go off means 'to start down the road';
'Stop; deteriorate; smell'; or 'explode';
Or (relationship-wise)
The bored look in her eyes
And the break-up their message forebode.

The winemaker started to gargle:
"This product is far below our goal."
His staff he lambasted.
By-products he tasted —
Potassium bitartrate!  That's argol.

On the etymological scene
There's a fallacy that is routine.
Though it's rather absurd,
People think what a word
Meant at one time, it always should mean.

Once again, you have do-not-come-near breath.
It's a smell-that-puts-into-me-fear breath.
You've downed brewskies all night;
They reversed. Is that right?
I'm not kissing your vomit-and-beer breath!

I remember when John became Dr. —
He got mad at a patient and sr.
She'd pilfered a pessary
For a fashion accessory;
He came from behind and cold-cr.

When the cold-blooded killer was sprung
And then asked, "Where's Ezekiel Young?
I have come into town
For to bed the man down,"
You knew lullabies need not be sung.

Starting "árma virúmque canó",
Virgil's dactyls proceeded to show
How Æneas fled home
And travelled to Rome—
Or, at least, where this city would grow.

You were cleverly trying to cleave,
When your cleaver got caught on your sleeve.
Since you've cloven the weft,
And it's shredded what's left,
That's a sleeve you won't need to retrieve.

"Subject A" is a substance abuser:
A crackhead, a speed freak, a boozer.
Though his chart says "In need"
And "At risk," it's agreed
It boils down to "this guy is a loser."

If someone jumps out and shouts "Boo!",
Crinogenic responses are due:
Epinephrine's released,
Which brings out your beast,
And you beat the poor guy black and blue.

New age gardeners ought to display
This great notice; it helps to convey
Folks are given due warning
Of this: it's "the awning
On the cage of asparagus". Hey!

Myrtle Corbin, according to lore,
Had not two legs, or three legs, but four.
A dipygus! And we
Can imagine that she
Had a great many socks in her drawer.

She's a beautiful girl and she's chased
By the guys who have excellent taste.
Though beneath a slim waist,
Her trim backside is placed,
She stays virginal, chaste. What a waste!

"What's that thing called?"  I don't mean to mock her,
But my girlfriend seemed quite off her rocker.
I laughed, "Holy moley!
The pad that a goalie
Blocks pucks with is simply a blocker."

"One could not go in gun-less, now could one?"
Asked Tom. "Bring a toy, like a wood one?
Or a gun made of soap?"
Answered Ted, "You're a dope!
I'd go 500 bucks for a good one."

For a codpiece my crotch fairly begs
(Mother Nature left me with the dregs!);
But I'll never be found
In the town running round
With a cold wad of cod 'twixt my legs!

Ms Luce, with a glint in her eye,
Murmured "Age before beauty" (Oh, my!)
To Ms Parker in line,
But then "Pearls before swine"
Was the acid-tongued writer's reply.

On my left foot I take a size nine,
But my right foot will not toe the line:
It's a twelve and a half.
I was built (no, don't laugh)
To a non-equipedal design.

There's a person I'm trying to be —
One who's better. It's hard. You agree?
But I'll speak out of love,
As I've risen above
All this crap that you're dumping on me.

Take an epicure's word of advice:
Cumin seed is a versatile spice.
With its caraway flavor,
It's easy to savor.
You can add it to soup or to rice.

You host sock hops, but tell me that none dance?
For the next one, to make it a fun dance,
And avoid your next flop,
Put the "hop" in sock hop
With Abondance there served in abundance.

Poor Annette! All her flatmates can see
Monthly envelopes marked "BNP".
But she seems like a mensch,
And her statements are French
(From the Banque Nationale de Paris).

Why did you make a beeline for me?
I'm no flower, and you're not a bee.
But now and again,
Just like all English men,
You see somebody's mug and think, "Tea!"

When I was a kid, Mum would scold,
Whenever some snow was foretold,
"Though your clothes may be cool,
Don't behave like a fool;
If you go out like that, you'll catch cold!"

Though the damselfish causes you grief,
He adds beauty beyond all belief:
Royal blues and bright yellows,
This girly-named fellow's
One dam' selfish fish from the reef.

In America, looks are essential.
For top leadership, Bruce had potential.
By polls he was guided,
But voters decided
Babbitt just didn't look presidential.

Give me marzipan, sweet almond paste!
When I get that amygdaline taste,
I feel great, I feel swell.
(But then, arsenic's smell
Is the same — is this Battenberg laced?)

The passage was marked as con sord.,
But something I couldn't afford
Was a real fiddle mute.
A penny would suit;
It fell out in the Largo.  Oh Lord!

"Sure we've met … I've forgotten the place …"
"You're my husband, and I'm your wife, Grace."
Oh, I don't like this game,
But it's always the same:
I just can't put a name to a face.

If a gamer's to have a good day,
Certain strategies turn things his way.
Each choice of an action
Ensures satisfaction.
Thus determinacy comes into play.

"Where'd the earthenware shard come from, Doc?
Perhaps Persian or Greek, this curved crock?
I'm for an amphora
Or Roman urn, or a..."
"This is China, my boy; that's a wok."

What a novice you are!  What a noob!
You're an idiot, man.  You're a boob.
You're a nit, you're a twit,
You're a stupid old git.
You're a fool; you're a tool; you're a choob!

A doctor got down on his knee,
Asking, "Dearest one, please marry me."
With a smile she agreed;
She's quite beamish indeed.
A bright future she now can foresee.

If a linear thing, at some date,
Should evolve to a figure of eight,
Evolution's proportion
Might lead to detorsion,
Ensuring its children go straight.

Move right! Something hot's coming through.
Join the crawler lane's leisurely queue.
You're beginning to fade,
You can't handle this grade.
I've got juice, but it's too steep for you.

"Tony Knuckles," an underworld hood,
Named a hit but was misunderstood.
And the victim?  Big Moe,
Tony's partner, and so
I suppose it was all to the good.

He's in prison; his treason was base.
It's a very long sentence he'll face.
But here's a surprise:
A pardon. How wise!
Said the monarch: "That's my act of grace."

Got something to get off my chest —
Get my money (the lot!) at the best.
I swindle and cheat
Half the fellows I meet,
And I hold up and rob all the rest.

Bulbs belong in the soil, I recall;
And yet here on a stem? Sure they're small,
But these bulblets all grow
Where it's not apropos.
I'm surprised they develop at all.

With a body to stop any boy
And a sensual purr, she's a joy.
Her voluptuous line
Will be hot in '09—
She's the auto you oughta employ.

Said my mom, with a horrified gasp,
"Here's a rule of this house you must grasp:
I am freaked by your snake —
It's a slimy mistake!
Lock it up.  Keep it clean.  Wipe your asp."

The carrying capacity tells
Us the number of hares or gazelles
(Be they few or a lot)
That can live in a spot
And inhabit its meadows and dells.

American football's a hoot;
They wear helmets with face masks—how cute!—
To protect their sweet chins,
Their noses, their grins.
The truth is: they're ugly to boot.

We'd been out all day long, busy shopping,
And back home, all we cared for was hopping
Into bed for a while.
There we lay, like a pile
Of dead sock puppets, peacefully flopping.

Do I know every fielding position?
Well, there's slip, cover, point. In addition,
Mid on and mid off,
Plus the sillies. (Don't scoff!)
To explain them more clearly's my mission.

A cosaque is a cracker that pops.
Little favors like this one are tops.
Grab the ends, give a pull!
Yes, the party room's full
Of these kid-pleasing, noisemaking  props.

The wine in my vat? A cuvée,
And you won't find this kind every day.
It's my own special blend,
And because you're my friend,
I will serve you a glass right away.

It appears we're at war with the Hun.
Bally Kaiser! He'll ruin the fun!
Overstating it? Me?
It could easily be
Bally Christmas before the war's won.

Ascendance is dominance; might.
It's about who's on top, not who's right.
As we jockey for power
Through each striving hour,
The ascend-dance goes on through the night.

The exudative sweat drops are oozing.
Antiperspirant use he's refusing,
So let's wait until Fritz
Falls asleep where he sits,
Then slosh Ban in his pits while he's snoozing.

My lover conveyed this assignment:
To spring her ol' man from confinement.
When I crashed through a wall,
Pop said, "Thanks," I recall,
But my front end's now out of alignment.

Dryland berries bear fruits that are sweet,
And for breakfast or lunch they're a treat.
In a muffin or pie,
Or whatever you try,
You will find them a pleasure to eat.

I'm praisin' Achilles, the tendon,
That keeps my poor ankle a-bendin'.
If it happens to tear,
I'll be stuck in a chair
(One with wheels on) for weeks while a-mendin'.

Was vermilion the colorant Sig meant,
When he said Chinese red is a figment
Of my wandering mind?
If he tries, he will find
It's a genuine kind of a pigment.

Attitude really means "pose."
For example, stand up on your toes
With your arms far outstretched
(It can look quite farfetched),
Just like Mercury bringing a rose.

Didelphian mamas, parentally,
Are mammals that birth non-placentally.
'Mongst marsups and opossums,
Maternal love blossoms —
Pouched joeys accouched, oh so gen'tally.

The Everett pencil's precise:
Two distinct lines of hair looking nice.
Starting down from the nose,
Left or right each one goes.
Trim it daily, would be my advice.

Mom gets lovelier as she grows older.
When we tell her, she laughs; we get bolder.
Then she turns it around,
Saying beauty is found
In the eye of the loving beholder.

There are times when life seems pretty hopeless
And I seem to be able to cope less.
By painting with blue
(That's azure to you),
Then my humour returns and I mope less.

An attractive point's not Cleo's nose:
It's where new iterations might close.
But no matter how much
You repeat, they won't touch;
So it's asymptote-esque, I suppose.

As I paddled away, he (capriciously)
Eyed the grain that was sitting (deliciously)
In the stern of the boat...
Damn! That wolf got my goat!
And then munched on the carcass, quite viciously.

With dressing, a turkey you stuff;
You decide what amount is enough
To enhance salad taste;
And this act's done in haste
When you find you've been viewed in the buff.

Life's complexity causes us trouble,
Like those billions of years seen from Hubble.
To be "faith-based" is pleasin',
More than troublesome reason —
Not allowed in our bullet-proof bubble.

There ain't nothing that's under the firmament
Like that old antigenic determinant.
Its immune specificity
Deserves more publicity,
And its place in our hearts should be permanent.

He's desacralized; don't call him "saint."
But I couldn't tell Auntie—she'd faint.
Broke the news to her slowly;
She insisted, "He's holy.
Sure, he's answered my every complaint."

Their misdeeds? In a book I compile 'em;
They're so raucous, I'd like to enisle 'em.
Leave my kids for ten minutes?
My house and what's in it's
A bedlam, just like the asylum.

The Antonine Plague aroused dread;
Almost five million people lay dead.
Caused by smallpox, it's said
This pandemic soon led
Roman armies to halt as it spread.

"Would sir care for the dish of the day?
It's pommes frites on a grain-fed filet."
Sounds so Frenchy, so chic,
Haute cuisine, so to speak.
(Fillet steak served with chips? You don't say.)

The invasion on D-Day, well-planned,
Almost failed in the Normandy sand
On June sixth, forty-four,
When GIs came ashore —
Yet its outcome was nothing but grand.

My Commerson's dolphin is small;
Fred's the smallest cetacean of all.
He's a "whale" of a pet
Who likes sports and stays wet
In my tub, where Fred heads his red ball.

Devitrification is when
Glass loses its luster, and then
You just can't see through it;
Whatever you do, it
Will not be transparent again.

Here's to calcspar (CaCO3)!
Used by Vikings when heading to sea;
Used for gunsights in war;
Found in cave, mine and moor;
Rated three for its hardness degree.

As a sailor I have many duties,
But I'd rather chase undersea cuties!
Ah, but mermaids, they keep
Hidden well in the deep.
Would that I were bathybic, my beauties!

With his smiles and his false bonhomie
And his back-slapping flattery, he
Is the conman who sold me
This truck, which he told me
Could run on a tank filled with tea!

Come to us for the choicest of treats;
We're purveyors of chocolated sweets.
We enrobe, dust or dip
For the trendy, the hip,
The elite. You should see our receipts.

"Let's watch Buffy, a cool DVD.
It's a series we missed on TV,"
Said my spouse, which dismayed me.
The title? It slayed me.
But the show's bloody great, I agree.

Since airfares get higher and higher,
I'm unlikely to get my desire.
First Class passage denied,
With the baggage I ride.
I'll never be called "Frequent Flyer."

"To walk without warmup's a gamble."
I whined, "I can just barely shamble!"
But a slow constitutional
Proved restitutional.
No need for a drawn-out pre-amble.

With a sound like a quick-clicking ratchet,
Let me follow the rhythm and match it.
As my chestnuts desire,
Your flamenco's on fire —
And if I castanet, I will catch it.

To ask is to beg or to plead,
To express in some manner your need:
A wish for a lift,
Assistance or gift,
A desire you hope will succeed.

You got Alzheimer's, making me cry;
Though you're gone, still your body won't die.
Do you recognize me?
I'm your son — can't you see?
There's no sadder, or longer, goodbye.

My attentive new husband DeWayne
Is beside me through sunshine and rain.
But now I'm confessing
I find it distressing;
Such closeness is blessing and bane.

His counterblast follows her screed.
The attack has such force that she'll need
A few days to regain
Her aplomb, but it's plain
Where this battle of blowhards will lead.

Some bigots who visited Cannes
Demanded a gay-movie ban
And, in ads quite extensive,
They screamed, "It's offensive!"
They failed; viewers raved to a man.

The felon's last crime was a thrill,
As he blew up the jail on the hill.
He was sentenced quite well;
Now he's building his cell.
His celliferous term's running still.

They seem opposites, bitter and sweet,
Yet at times, such emotions can meet,
And the sweet is the more
For the bitter at core,
And the mixture is strangely complete.

A fantabulous float my pub sold
Contained ice cream and beer.  I was told,
Made with stout or with root,
A beer float makes one toot.
Me, I don't give a hoot, now I'm old.

"The next service? They won't have to cancel,"
Said a maintenance fellow named Hansel.
"The wax should be dry.
Let the minister try,
Without falling, to climb to the chancel."

"When I light this ear candle you'll find
It will draw out debris of all kind."
Cried the boy feeling shaky,
"I like earwax cakey...
And what if it sucks out my mind?"

"What you did in the car with my sister,
Through the window I saw — what a vista!
Your deep exhalation
Had caused condensation,
But then —  you switched on the demister!"

A cruet is placed on the table,
For guests, so each diner is able
To add pepper or salt
(Over-seasoned? Your fault!),
Or some mustard, from pots with no label.

The book is devoid of a plot;
As for structure and theme, it's got squat.
And reviewers all claim
Every chapter's the same —
But his name means that sales are red hot.

"This new table: please don't build it slackly.
Bring good, solid wood such as acle
Direct from Manila
To furnish my villa."
"That's Philippine hardwood?" "Exackly!"

Made for streets in the city (thus "Civic"),
Not for highways, it's urban specific.
Then boomers got older.
Made bigger and bolder,
At high speed it's really terr-ivic.

Once quite flat, now my bosom's convex—
That's a trait of my feminine sex.
By the end of the year
I may need a brassiere.
If you see him, please don't tell my ex.

A poor biomathematician
Was regretting his market position.
Through a rosier lens
He'd pre-counted his hens,
But his eggs hadn't come to fruition.

The chisel Dwight uses to carve on
His cameos broke. He may starve on
The pittance he makes—
Spent on pills that he takes—
That's his dextropropoxyphene—Darvon.

A pianist's marked cheiromegaly
Meant a stretch of a tenth was quite beggarly;
With his right thumb on C
He could reach up to b';
With his left he played thirteenths quite reg'arly.

He was brave, he was haughty. No bolder man
Held court in the county, no colder man.
(See his lip — watch it curl.)
Though today we'd say "earl",
Anglo-Saxon folk called him an "ealdorman".

Before I ingest antischiz-
ophrenia drugs, my brain sits
In a jar on the floor.
But I worry no more;
Now my skull's where it comfortably fits.

Sir Calidore searched west and east,
Found and muzzled the dread blattant beast.
With its clamorous lungs,
Iron teeth, thousand tongues
Blocked with chains, blatant calumny ceased.

Said the hussar, "That jacket, you keep,
Because now, when I see it, I weep.
That dolman was made
By my wife, newly laid
In her grave.  She just passed in her sleep."

Jerry Lee, quite the wiz, knows his tools
To shake nerves and win magical duels;
His most famous shoots flame
In a ball (hence the name)—
Goodness gracious, that fireball rules!

As Kepler believed, it's a fact:
When spheres have been properly stacked,
They fill space in 3-D
With the least volume free.
That arrangement's denoted close-packed.

In the spring, a young gentleman's focus
May alight on the flower called crocus.
Though he may be desirous
Of picking this iris
For courting, it's sheer hocus-pocus.

It's the either-be-hunted-or-hunt line;
It's the we-bear-the-brunt-of-the-grunt line.
If you can't stand the heat
You should take a back seat.
If you can, be a man — on the front line!

It cools from your head to your feet—
Air-con in a room is most sweet.
When outside it's hot,
And inside it's not,
That sensation is quite hard to beat.

My brain throbs with a site of deep pain;
"MRIs", says my shrink, "can explain:
What recurs on occasion
Is cerebral invasion
By 'news-cycle derangement', again."

The nor'easter still whistles and moans
Where the tars have surrendered their bones.
It's Abu's fault they're dead.
They will now make their bed
In the locker of cold Davy Jones.

Cinderella now likes to confess
That this dochmiac line carried stress:
"You shall go, my dear!"
Was disturbing to hear
With no slippers, no coach, and no dress.

I'm bogged down 'cause I'm up to my ass
In an addle (a muck, a morass) —
I was out gathering wool
When I felt the ground's pull.
I'd slog on but I've run out of gas.

I phone strangers.  You find that appalling,
That marketing practice — cold calling?
It's also called "dialing
And (lyingly) smiling"
As I hope for my sales pitch they're falling.

Doc Martin, the blood-phobic doc,
Fled to Cornwall to care for a flock.
There his sour grumpy ways
Didn't gain him much praise.
He was colder than ice in a block.

Do I have lots of dates?  Yeah, you bet!
Every month and I haven't missed yet —
Thirty-one just in May!
(Oh, with women, you say?
Umm, no, that kind of date I don't get.)

Bert's about to confess to his bride
(Almost ready—not quite) that he's lied.
When he does, he should run.
She's got lawyers, a gun,
And a mean streak a half a mile wide.

W.C., first a juggler of note,
Became known for the movies he wrote
And performed in, his booze,
And his child-rearing views,
For his voice, and his "elephant" quote.

Her new love's like a runaway cart;
In a week it's "'Til death do us part."
Though her actions are rash,
And there might be a crash,
There's no way that she's braking her heart.

What's a bugaboo, bugbear or bug?
It's a bogeyman (mythical thug);
A dread chore that's a wrench;
A bête noire (from the French);
Or a bogey that makes you go "Ugh!".

Carolean refers to the rule
Of two Charleses of England. One fool
Was a tyrant, which led
To his losing his head,
While the other thought Catholics were cool.

As a child I would cry in my bed,
Fooled by stories that filled me with dread.
I'd see monsters quite mean
Who would glow pink and green;
Such babyshed left my eyes red.

Hoover's FBI agents, called feds,
Captured moonshiners, gangsters and Reds.
Now they try to make sure
That our homeland's secure
So we Yanks can sleep safe in our beds.

A fireworks maker will tame
Many chemicals, varied by name.
When explosions are seen
Burning brilliantly green,
It's a chlorine and barium flame.

Major drug companies, known as big pharma,
Make medicines—drugs are their dharma.
Their prices are high,
And that may make us sigh—
Still, their products help better our karma.

Hal's phallus, in wretched condition,
Stays erect and requires emollition.
He requests medication
To achieve relaxation
And alter its awkward position.

The emission of heat from a hot
Solid body depends, so I'm taught,
On its temperature, size,
On its matter, the highs
And the lows of its shape in each spot.

Two tropical birds called cacique
Try on scarves in a fashion boutique.
Says Ms Red-rump, "I say!
This yellow's outré!"
And Ms Yellow-rump leaves in a pique.

Ross and Sal had a tiff about Gertie
(Their sea bird) about seven-thirty:
"She's a black-footed albatross,"
Pointed out Sal, but Ross
Countered, "Her feet are just dirty."

Joe did not catch her drift, so Lynn tried
To make clear what she'd merely implied:
With him she's not smitten,
And it wouldn't be fittin'
To wed, though he begged and he cried.

Calling dull, processed lunch meat bologna
Looks to some people foreign and phogna.
But baloney's no meat
That a guy'd choose to eat,
'Cause the spelling ain't stylish or togna.

Faded photos—my father looks proud
In his uniform: later his shroud.
How he loved Army life,
But he died in the strife
Of the battle—just one of a crowd.

I've a plan to defeat fighting French;
'Tis upon them we'll play a good blench.
When they start to attack,
Why, we'll quickly fall back
And the French we will drench in our trench.

Gigi pulled up some chairs and we sat —
Conversation 'bout this and of that.
She purred like a kitten,
Decidedly smitten,
"It's nice to be sharing this chat."

The Abbasids carried the day,
And from Baghdad these caliphs held sway.
From Abbas they descended,
And clearly intended
To rule in the family way.

Though they skate at a breathtaking pace,
The play comes to a halt at the face,
When the action is stopped
So the puck can be dropped —
Then it's back to the ice hockey chase.

Every week I enjoy a calm ration
Of a darn-close-to-weightless sensation.
Adrift in my pool,
I hang loose in that cool
Meditation-inducing flotation.

Let me write a short ditty to Ada,
Not the famous computing crusader,
But the language. Soon this'll
Be guiding a missile —
Would such use of her name have dismayed her?

An axial view of your head
Can be had from the tip of your bed
Or by medical scan;
In the latter you can
See a big fluid X, it is said.

When we run out of acres down here,
We might move to a big Bernal sphere.
It's a pretty huge place,
And there's oodles of space
Out in space (at least that's what I hear).

This silver's been masterfully chased:
Hammered shapes in such delicate taste,
With a tapped-in tight weave—
It's so hard to believe
It was made to receive human waste.

The bell tree and mark tree both jingle
With their chimes in a bunch, never single.
But the bell tree's bells nest
On a stick with the rest,
While the mark tree has dowels that dingle.

From Disney came gems like Fantasia,
But the crap they make now might amaze ya:
The Travails of Snow White
And Her Fight for the Plight
Of A Septet with Achondroplasia.

Uncle Manny, who crafted machinery
For gardeners growing their greenery,
Made mowers—a dozen
Fine models. My cousin
Says his output was thus duodenary.

On her wedding night, Nan will allow,
They will consummate God's holy vow.
But the word is a puzzle;
In their bed, will they guzzle
Thin beef broth? She can't figure how!

Anticorrosives, like oils and paints,
Make a surface resistant to taints.
Their employment stops crusting
And rotting and rusting
Of glorious statues of saints.

"Have a drink! Loosen up, guy, have two!"
That's the drill if he's buoyant or blue,
Or the world's changing seasons.
A binge drinker has reasons
To drink till his whole life's askew.

Marine ornithologists (gull men)
Love to boast of the length of the culmen
(Top edge of the bill,
Tip to head). What a thrill!
Yup, it sure goes to show they ain't dull men.

Just as horse thieves are many — galdang 'em! —
So too are the ways to defang 'em.
An adjudicative fight
In the East works alright.
The Old West?  No such test — we just hang 'em.

A computer's installed just to steer
All machines in my home, but I fear
That these fancy domotics,
These "household robotics",
May try to run me when I'm near.

I am like a proverbial pea.
I can double for him, he for me.
You must learn from the start
That to tell us apart
He's the one with the ginger goatee.

My sister remarked, "Why not choose
This new slang term for breasts: babaloos?
If Desi Arnaz
Comes back female," she says,
"I am sure that's the term she will use."

My bank clerk's a Brit sort of feller,
Who says in a voice London-meller,
"To clark is a skill
You Yankees cahn't fill,
So don't say I'm only a teller."

A wrong outcome attained through confusion
Means goals just become an illusion.
When endgames aren't matched
By the plots that you've hatched,
The term balls-up describes the conclusion.

The Houses of Parliament's tower?
Or the clock there, as some will avow? A
Mistake used for either,
Big Ben's really neither —
It's the bell that rings out on the hour.

The thought of impending sensations
Gives all of us girls palpitations.
We shut tight our eyes
As we open our thighs
For our cervical examinations.

Lusty summer is here! Cuckoo, sing!
Make the woodlands and meadows all ring!
The bullocks are starting
To leap, goats are farting,
Seeds burgeoning. Exit pale spring.

A professor who hailed from St. Paul,
Fully tenured before she could crawl,
Was a prodigy. She
Earned her first Ph.D.
Antenatally, as I recall.

She battily reasoned she'd roam
Through the town with her toothbrush and comb.
The detective now cites:
"Seems she'd left on the lights
And walked out, but then never came home."

That animal libber's insane!
With a view that our zoo's inhumane,
Freeing every beast there,
He made people aware
Of his rabid and loony campaign.

Here are counterintuitive things:
An airplane that doesn't have wings,
A Giant who's small,
And the oddest of all,
Contributions to pols without strings.

A skin disease currently mars
The hides of my lambs; it's dartars.
I've consulted the vet,
But they're not cured as yet,
And I'm hoping the scabs won't leave scars.

"A young swan? What a beautiful thing!
There are six in my moat," said the king.
"Can we teach them to go
In a circle? If so,
I will christen it this: cygnet ring."

Your belittling words break my heart.
You tell me I'm not very smart.
You make me feel small
With, "You're no use at all!"
You've got scornfulness down to an art.

That bellboy gets no tip! It's true!
When I said, "Get the suitcases, you!
In the trunk!" he went "Ping!"
And "A-ring-a-ling-ching!"
How that ding-dong got work, I've no clue.

Many people, when driven to choose,
Pick careers that'll give them the blues.
But I've made compotation
My chosen vocation;
My job, simply put, is to booze.

I put freshly cut grass in my soup
So my chlorophyll levels won't droop.
There are benefits three:
My nice lawn, as you see,
Lots of vitamin G, and green poop.

A chorister singing "Messiah"
Had noticed the church was on fire,
But misheard the refrain:
"He is God, he shall reign",
And neglected to warn the poor choir.

At the kennel (a canine hotel), a
Requirement is stop! show-and-tell a
New verification
Of immunization,
So dogs cannot cough Bordetella.

Said daughter to mother, "Oh, please.
All this talk of the birds and the bees?
Mom, you never would pass
My biology class,
For they never cross-fertilize. Jeez!"

Some behaviors (like touching the thigh, on
Occasions) a fellow might try on
His gal, when he courts,
Are exactly the sorts
That a chaperone must keep an eye on.

Fasciolidae: family of flukes,
Infectious in peasants and dukes.
On these worms parasitic,
There are tomes analytic,
But the patient has cramps and then pukes.

I've gone backpacking, thoroughly sauced,
So I'm backtracking, thoroughly lost.
Since the weight of that pack
Caused a crick in my back,
I need back-cracking quick. Hang the cost!

The Scottish-born architect Adam
Would design mighty mansions and clad 'em
In stone and in brick;
All the nobs got in quick,
So to boast at their banquets, "We had 'im."

This morning sad news I am sharing:
Further coitus I'm hereby forswearing.
Yes, I freely renounce
Sex in any amounts,
As I've found that my life's been too wearing.

If you happen to journey through adland,
No doubt you'll soon see it's a badland.
There liars hold sway
And hype rules the day,
And Truth's fled away from that mad land.

You love me, you hate me — oh, swell!
And you alternate so very well.
Egad, you're pathetic,
Electromagnetic,
Attract and repel — what the hell.

Anacostia's Bladensburg docks
Host the black-crowned night heron, whose "quocks"
Summon fish in the gloaming;
It lurks, never roaming.
It lunges, suspending its vox.

It's a breeze: if you breezily breeze
Through the form — you will do it with ease —
And just sign on the line,
Then what's yours will be mine.
It's a doddle — just go ahead, please.

I like barbecue; you prefer stew.
For me, only chocolate will do,
While you are a fella
Who goes for vanilla:
I see no accordment, do you?

As I slept, my dreams centered by chance
On big bosoms — they gathered my glance.
When I later awoke, I
Found out that those foci
Had caused quite a stir in my pants.

In the fifties there was a great tome
That was read from Atlanta to Nome.
This classic by Spock,
The late, great baby doc,
Was a boon for new parents at home.

Commodity crop marketeers
Have a contrary notion of years:
Come the reaping of crops,
Then the harvest-year stops;
That's the basis of trading careers.

Being negative's such a big loser;
For side-tracking things it's a doozer.
I prefer affirmation,
And make this declaration:
I'm for positive views—a yes-chooser.

Ninety-three, ninety-two, ninety-one...
Counting backwards is not lots  of fun.
Now count backward by sixes.
Assigning such tricks is
The best test of thinking, bar none.

You just copy me, do like I do.
Get your own life — your envy shows through.
You're so off-the-chart emulous,
Making me tremulous —
Life with you's all deja vu.

In our cells, DNA's information
Can't make proteins without mediation
By mRNA.
But prokaryotes' way?
Co-transcriptional codon translation!

Beholders don't always agree
On attractiveness.  Beauty, to thee
And to me, is just based
On one's personal taste.
But you're right.  She's a looker, I see!

It's the life of a spinster I'm facin'
By jilting the boyfriends who hasten
To ask me to marry.
It's William and Harry,
Those reign beaux, that I'm always chasin'.

If you're conny, you're clever and smart.
Your bravery's surely an art.
You're canny, you're fine,
And I think you're divine,
So you'll always remain in my heart!

A maverick dogie in Walker
Eluded the cowhand, its stalker.
He caught it at last;
Though the calf's not bound fast,
Sturdy barbwire restrains the young balker.

A circus performer, once stellar,
Tripped and fell down the stairs to the cellar.
Though his limbs were intact
It still ruined his act
As the damage was all cerebellar.

The monitor started to beep.
This was more than descent into sleep.
He, beginning to pray,
Watched his mum drift away,
Kissed her forehead and started to weep.

Though Enrico is off with Saint Peter,
His surname won't vanish or teeter.
What explains its persistence?
The fermi's a distance:
A quadrillionth part of a meter.

The crampfish? An odd one, I'd say,
That is found on the floor of this bay.
If you step off the dock
On this fish, then a shock
That's electric will come from this ray.

Since my body exhibits clonality,
I've discovered a strange abnormality:
My soulmate is me!
Now we're dating, you see—
A position of doubtful legality.

On an armrest he's mounted a gun;
In the cushions are tasers that stun.
At the back are the jets;
It's as good as it gets
When your son thinks an armchair is fun!

Ace reporter Chris Jay got the scoop:
All four Beatles reforming the group!
George and John are to sing
Through this ouija board thing.
What a story—a really big whoop!

The First Nation enshrined him in lore;
Then cartoons told the story once more
In a different way,
But they all seemed to say
That coyote has great tricks in store.

You have heard of disloyal Macbeth
And the man he had put to his death.
To the victory roast
Came a banqueter ghost.
It was Banquo who'd drawn his last breath.

Each seduction I plan optimistically:
"That gal will be mine, cabalistically!"
Does a potion or spell
Do the trick? Not that well.
I am oh-for-three-hundred statistically.

You despatched the poor guy—yes, he's dead.
My report's been despatched and it's sped
At a pace hard to match
And with all due despatch.
When it's read they'll be after your head.

My uncle is cheap, you will see—
He drinks water when others drink tea.
In the winter he'll freeze,
While a summertime breeze
Heats his house to 103.

In England, the word for suspenders
Is braces. Such usage engenders
The fiction that it
Makes you sound like a Brit;
But in truth, that's the speech of pretenders.

When I pause to consider my brain,
Paradoxically that puts a strain
On the brain that I pause to
Consider, because to
Consider things causes it pain.

Bill demands to be called Mr. Vaughn
Now he's boss. "I'm the king—you're a pawn.
I was chosen," he said,
"Because I use my head"
(Which is just where his bossdom has gone).

One more lie, Frank, you're right back in jail.
Our procedure's ideal; it can't fail:
This elective brain surgery
Terminates perjury…
What's the matter, Big Frank? You look pale.

"Tell me, wherefore that glint in your eye,
Sir Oliver Pilkington-Pie?
Does it indicate ire?"
"No, the heat of the fire
Put a spark in my eye, that is why."

The bakeneko comes from Japan.
It's a mythical feline that can
With a leap raise the dead
Or replace 'em instead,
Usurping their lives for a span.

Thanks to firelight, night reading's alright.
With my back to the fire, it's so bright.
But it's hot there, alas,
And I'm burning my ass,
And it won't take too long to ignite.

He's been watching old re-runs all day,
Giggling loudly (well, more like a bray).
He's unhinged, incoherent,
Deranged and delirant.
Take that man in the mirror away!

As a  suitor, you shouldn't reject
The concept of cause and effect.
If you try to connect
Without proper respect,
The girl's father will see that you're decked.

A rounder, a boozer, a bum,
Found a drug that was made from a gum.
Some churrus he chewed —
A reaction ensued —
He's passed out now and totally numb.

Calliopses for Valentine's may
Fit the price you are wanting to pay.
But a red-centered daisy
Won't drive your girl crazy,
So splurge and send roses that day.

Though his lordship thinks parboiling wheat
And removing the bran's quite a feat,
He won't say so to you,
And taboulli's taboo;
Bulgur language offends the elite.

He'd worked hard, always brought home the bacon
Till the night we discovered the break-in.
He won't eat since that theft.
Only buzzard bait's left—
Skin and bones. He was that badly shaken.

Small fragments of food are a symbol
Of visitors wily and nimble.
So when spotting the crumble
Of mice, don't just grumble;
Start a quest for these pests who can chimble.

I look chrysalid up, and I find
It means "pupal," but never the kind
In the eye that can gaze.
It's a butterfly's phase—
One that's left larval living behind.

For sentencing, Kwame's appearing.
The bribery, fraud, racketeering,
And more sealed his fate.
Now he's gonna go straight
To the big house.  Detroiters are cheering.

All his daughters want haircuts and perms,
But he thinks of the prices, and squirms.
So I say to him, "John,
Go to Hector's salon,
Make an offer and bring him to terms!"

Beryllium's element four,
Found in many a mineral ore.
A light metal that's brittle,
Long contact with it'll
Cause health problems tough to ignore.

On shore there's a captain named Grace,
Known for keeping the men in their place;
She'd two frigid commands,
But now lets a few hands
Have more liberty 'round her third base.

Trump's opinion of Clinton: "She's horrible!"
She called half his supporters "deplorable,"
But before very long,
She backed off: "half...was wrong."
(Two contenders that sure are adorable.)

When one studies the world of the arts,
Of which carving and sculpture form parts,
Then the phrase chalk and cheese
Might apply well to these.
Very different though close in our hearts.

It's my feet that are causing my blues:
I've got blisters just starting to ooze.
Every step makes me flinch
As my toes feel the pinch;
I can't wait to break in these new shoes.

There's a challenge that prickles your hair
If the enemy's lines you would dare
Reconnoitre to seek
Any points that are weak.
It's a voice saying, "Halt! Who goes there?!"

The treatment required was drastic,
But your canaloplasty's fantastic.
Though your growths were severe,
Let your fears disappear.
Your new ear is all clear and part plastic.

What all quantum mechanics suppose,
The Aharonov-Bohm effect shows:
That electromagnetical
Gauge-theoretical
Hand-waving's right on the nose.

As children, the fishbowl we eyed —
Two identical goldfish inside.
Belly-up one fish went,
And my sister's lament?
"What a shame, Chris.  Your goldfish has died."

"Is it safe to come out?" asks the pheasant,
Who is hiding away for the present.
"We all have our needs,
And mine are some seeds,
But I'm finding the rain quite unpleasant."

Zack is famous for sheer factuality.
His reports never stray from reality.
They're exact, and their actualness
Reflects his work's factualness.
Truth's essential—not just a formality.

"Those BlackBerry phones are for teens,"
Whines my Gran, but I know what she means.
Hi-tech makes her heart slam,
Turns her knees into jam...
So an ElderBerry's tucked in her jeans.

Some curve-bladed chisels are good
For grooving or holing flat wood.
That gouge carves out bone,
And a surgeon alone
Should be banging it, not some damn hood.

Said a fashion designer from France,
"I shall give these synthetics a chance."
Now his closet is full
Not of cotton or wool,
But of Acrilan sweaters and pants.

You may find my view unrealistic.
I believe the mastitis called cystic
Is a cross women bear,
Though when followed with care,
Its prognosis is quite optimistic.

Some veggies go down smooth as silk,
While others are not of that ilk.
Many tricycle-riding
Young tots will try hiding
Green broccoli sunk in their milk.

You write well? I write better than you!
An inventor you are? I am too!
I have been there before,
Broke the bank, set the score.
Whatever you try, I've been through.

With setbacks besetting my lover
And storm clouds collecting above her,
She shows her facility
For bouncebackability,
Finding a way to recover.

He looks cool in his wrestling tights,
But gets booed by the crowd many nights.
It's just that he's stoic
And antiheroic
Each time that he cheats and he bites.

The bull tossed its head, side to side,
As picadors' barbs pierced its hide.
Then the matador's part
Was to strike through its heart
With barbaric and bloodthirsty pride.

Bigeminal pulse, that's what some
People have; it goes double (how rum!):
Two beats, then a pause.
But mine is like yours —
OEDILFers' hearts beat "da-da-DUM".

"Though I hate to be so analytic,
It would seem that your pit's bacteritic."
"Well, how can you tell?"
"I can tell by the smell..."
"Darn it, everyone thinks he's a critic."

Contracted words often change meaning.
An apostrophe helps, intervening,
So shell becomes she'll,
Just as hell becomes he'll.
It's then perfectly clear at first screening.

"Direct, O Lord God, this my way
In your sight." So the people would pray,
And the morning would pass.
Then a requiem Mass
Followed Dirige. Funer-all-day.

The Emperor, as everyone knows,
Ends orations with terminal prose.
Where he once waxed devout,
He now hollers, "Peace out!"
We call it the Emperor's new close.

When engaged in their far-reaching duels,
Politicians should follow the rules,
And never misstep on
Their choice of a weapon.
Atomic bombs suffer no fools.

Mother eagle is doing her best
For the eaglets up there in her nest.
When she's feeding her brood,
Hungry chicks cry for food
And she seldom enjoys any rest.

To the sound of the Westminster chimes
He read: "SHOCK! HORROR! MINISTER'S CRIMES!"
While he skipped to Page Three
He quipped, "Though an M.P,
We must all keep abreast of the times."

Lex Luthor, that odious man,
Has devised a most devious plan
To bring Superman down
And take over our town—
He's got Kryptonite locked in a can.

How does Biden, the patriot, feel?
"Kate, it's time to be part of the deal...
Help America out
Of the rut."  He's about
Redistributing income with zeal.

I smoke two packs of cigs every day.
I chain smoke, I'm sorry to say,
So with each rasping breath
I draw closer to death,
In a matchlessly horrible way.

BMWs fly like an eagle,
Automotively reeking of regal.
In parlance, a Beemer,
This Autobahn screamer
Is pushing my leadfoot past legal.

If you step on the tail of your pet,
He may howl and become quite upset,
But don't let him escape;
You should get him on tape,
For creating musique that's concrète!

It's your belly that can't match the size
Of your avidly gluttonous eyes.
This I'd guess by the great
Heap of food on your plate:
All those leftovers prompt my surmise.

On the water there's no one who'll care
If I think of my yacht as a lair.
Below decks is a cabin
For kissin' and grabbin'.
In time we will come up for air.

The power plant trip was just swell.
The guide told us all he could tell.
As we walked round inside
All the staff glowed with pride
That they worked here at BNFL.

To crash Freddy's wedding Frank tried,
As he wanted to win back the bride.
So he dressed as a waiter
Who'd signed up to cater.
His familiarness got him inside.

Please don't consider me dim,
If I should go out on a limb
And state quite laconically
Aaronic, Aaronically
Meaning "of or relating to him."

For this latest admission, our fee
Will be minimal. He was F-D-
S-T-W. Look
On the bright side: this schnook
From all paying of bills now is free.

In light of the pounds I'd been shedding,
I produced my old tux for the wedding.
It was bindingly tight
So I gave up the fight,
Bought a new tux. My gut's resumed spreading.

On the tails, firm against foreign knaves,
Whom she sends to their watery graves
('Tis no myth, I declare;
The reverse is true) — there
Is Britannia ruling the waves.

There's a continent unlike the rest;
Only scientists think it the best.
Why on earth have they chosen
A landmass so frozen?
The ice is precise, they'll attest.

You're my husband now, Jim, so of course,
It's your duty to care for my horse.
I'm the bride; you're the groom.
Get to work, or assume
I'll be filing next week for divorce.

Cereus — night blooming plant.
I've been trying to grow one, but can't.
It should take little practice
To grow that tough cactus,
But my gardening talent is scant.

Where the black-feathered body pile goes
Is a question I thought I should pose.
I'll dislike it a lot
If I wait 'til they rot,
Caws I've murdered a murder of crows.

I don't like how you dress like a clown.
I don't like how you strut about town.
But, of course, I'll be there,
Even if people stare:
It's a given I won't let you down.

I'm chirurgeonly trained; my C.V.
Says "Cornell," "neurosurgeon," "M.D."
Since the price I command
For each slice is  a grand,
I throw cutting remarks in for free.

As a paid debauchee, Miss Michelle
Would attend to elite clientele.
Every man was assured
She'd divulge not a word:
They were all "clien-no-tell" as well.

When bacteria struck, beta-lactam
Used 4-atom ring power and smacked 'em.
Beta-lactamase, though,
On behalf of the foe,
Found the key to the drug's rings and hacked 'em.

Behind the sun, where we can't scan it,
There's a strange hypothetical planet.
Antichthon, it's called,
And you might be appalled
When you learn that Australians man it!

It was probably far too ambitious
Of the doughtier long-ago fishes
To crawl from the seas
And walk among trees,
But the outcome was fairly propitious.

Deauration, the duchess was told,
Is to gild, or to cover with gold.
Chatsworth windows are such,
And the price wasn't much,
So she bought twice the quantity. Bold.

Good king Abgar was leprous (or gouty),
But had faith, so a note he sent out. He
Addressed it to Jesus
And said, "It would please us
To host you. Come heal us. Be doughty!"

My sister yaps non-stop all day.
One more word from her mouth and she'll pay!
My solution for Vicky
Is tricky and sticky —
Some duct tape should keep her at bay.

"Why despondent, my sweet?  The day's splendid!"
"The prince and Papa just descended;
My desponsage is signed.
This betrothal's unkind.
Ah, my love, were but you my intended."

My boss made a wild accusation
That filled me with rage and frustration:
"That old wheelchair you motorized—
It wasn't deodorized.
It smells like a loo at Penn Station!"

I frequently use curry powder;
Its tang makes my food shout out louder.
Made from multiple spices,
It blends, and what's nice is
It's great in a stew or a chowder.

Egg-crate panels may not be exciting,
But they'll manage the spill of harsh lighting.
Fluorescents too bright?
Grids of squares make things right,
And your work space a tad more inviting.

A ham-fisted scrapman named Hopper
Was trying to cut through some copper.
When his cold chisel snapped,
He was zapped and decapped.
Now his wife is donating his topper.

If it's edible, you can digest it.
If it's eatable, critics confessed it
OK, but still far
From a Michelin star.
And the stomach? "I'll stay in and rest it."

A behavioral scientist, Matt,
In a Skinner box once placed a rat,
Two pigeons, a mouse,
And his Manx from the house.
One day later, what's left?  One fat cat.

Conflagration! One's lost—it's the sitter.
So bag her; she's one crispy critter:
Charred beyond recognition,
ID'd by dentition.
Dark humor can shock and embitter.

A charming young wastrel named Artie
Is in charge of the chores at the party.
Now he delegates work
And relaxes—the jerk—
While we slave, the guy shirks. What a smartie.

"Who dealt it?" A phrase most accusing.
All search for the one they'll be choosing
To lay blame: who did pass
That malodorous gas?
"You smelt it" won't work for excusing.

Keep on walking. In Ryde (Isle of Wight),
You will soon reach the caravan site.
Then bear left, and you'll see
A large sycamore tree.
When you get to a crossroads, turn right!

Since Marquita's sick thyroid's a quitter,
Swollen up like an Eve's-apple fritter,
Zap it dead! What intrigue!
She needs antifatigue:
Bottoms-up! She'll get better...or bitter?

Read your Gide and think deeply on life,
Seek the meanings of peace and of strife;
You'll Discophora way
To make acalephs pay,
And Ms. Frieda will soon be your wife.

A sauce for your salad's a dressing —
Vinaigrette, cooked or creamy — caressing
The greens, veg  or noodles.
It'll often add oodles
Of calories, diet-distressing.

I see disparate despots, all potted,
And desperate not to get spotted,
At the depot nearby
Buying bottles of rye
For those despots who opt to get sotted.

I've developed an engouement, true,
An irrational fondness for you.
There's no rhyme and no reason
For findin' you pleasin'.
I love you, my skank.  I just do.

In my last gastronomic adventure,
Escargots had got caught in my denture.
Then from gastropod hell,
One squirmed out of its shell ...
Ghastly meal! Where's a chef I can censure?

Maybe Meg will need more  than some towels
If the hunter, as planned, disembowels
That stag that he shot
In her drive. Has she got
Any shovels? (Too gloppy for trowels.)

You must think me a gullible guy
If you thought lame excuses I'd buy.
It's my leg that you pull
With an old cock-and-bull
Kind of story. It's garbage. Don't try.

I am one of those motor-car freaks
(Lamborghini, Ferrari) who seeks
To drive fast quite a lot,
But, alas, I got caught,
So I'm off to the brig for six weeks.

"Spare some change?" said the tramp, avariciously,
As I looked at his fine clothes suspiciously.
"I don't think you're needy —
You're plainly just greedy!"
I said, then I left expeditiously.

"A gift in the mail: I've been Bosced."
(Those are pears, yellow-brown—glad you ahsked.)
But they'd taken some knocks,
Being packed in a box,
And were blemished and bruised when unmahsked.

A transparent aspirer, undaunted,
In the X-ray department had flaunted
Her desire to be boss,
Which she did at her loss,
For they clearly saw through what she wanted.

On my sill, silver Siamese sat.
That's a blueblood aristo-type cat.
With their air of disdain,
They surveyed their domain,
Barely deigning to reign, until . . . Scat!

His social skills ain't up to snuff.
His grammar and language is rough.
He's cranky an' crude.
He's abrupt, curt, an' rude.
But he's mine, praise the Lord! That's enough.

An irrational fear, I agree;
But I dread that some day I will be
In a lift that is crammed,
While the damn doors are jammed.
We're all trapped.  And I'm bustin' to pee!

She came near to suppressing her fear
Of my touch, of my breath on her ear...
But she fled. Decades passed.
Still the memories hold fast
With the end of my days coming near.

When you turn up the volume to blare,
It's so loud that my patience will wear.
But my uppermost fear's
For the health of your ears,
So I'll box them, to show that I care.

A new pope! From the Vatican, live,
In the year of 2005!
Once called Ratzinger, Joe,
Now he's ready to go,
And as Benedict XVI he'll thrive.

An overworked lawyer, Al Vesco,
Dreams of leisurely lunches al fresco
(In the sweet summer air),
But there's no time to spare
So once more he'll be dining al desko.

'Mongst those hawking their snake oil for dough,
Were a few with real cures to bestow.
Brown-Séquard's helped some men
Feel young vigor again;
One swore it helped balls...  that he'd throw.

It's a squabble: loud quarrel or brawl.
It's a binge: drinking beers 'til you sprawl.
It's an old Irish name
And a singer of fame
And a film where the Duke shoots 'em all.

For milk, dear, you've quite an affinity,
And there's methane around your vicinity.
Yes, you stand in the mud,
And will chew on your cud,
But Bessie, I love your bovinity.

Jack looked blue.  I asked, "Why the long face?"
"Am I that dolichofacial, Ms. Grace?"
"Jack, that joke is so bad —
Like your lawyering — sad!
Guess you lost one more cut-and-dried case."

The gymnast who burst on the scene
Long before she was even a teen
Is the star (mythopoeic?)
Who's amenorrheic,
With menses as spare as she's lean.

We're appalled at the polls, which have shown
We're electing a corpse! Might have known,
Since it's worthy of note
That our dead get to vote,
And perhaps he's just one of their own.

Either both of the pair, or one earring
Had a habit that wasn't endearing.
When I'd open the case
I'd find just empty space—
Not a trace. Were the jewels disappearing?

Henry Cavendish measured Big G
(Though historians might not agree)
Using balls made of lead
And a thin metal thread.
Plus, the weight of the Earth came for free.

Butterfingered habitual spiller
Left her not enough breakfast to fill her.
He's the clumsiest ox,
Knocking over the box:
Little brother, the cereal killer.

"Any luck that is pure is blind luck;
And a duck that can't see? A blind duck.
But a duck blind? What's that?"
"A hut hunters hide at
While they're waiting for ducks, where they're stuck."

In heaven, ten thousand and one
Years of antiphon all count as none.
We've still as much gruelling
Dull verse-by-verse duelling
As when anti-fun had begun.

When you duckwalk, you mimic ducks' ways;
On the catwalk a model sashays;
To jaywalk on roads
Is against highway codes;
And in sheepwalks there's pasture to graze.

Silk's (or blended silk's)  lengthwise-set crinkles
Are a foil for my eyes and their twinkles.
Crêpe is flimsy, but crêpon
Is firmer in drape on
My dignified form and its wrinkles.

"Convection" is simply conduction
Into fluids in motion (by suction
Or pression), no new
Kind of path. It's but two
Modes of heat transfer: Heed my instruction!

Little redheaded Anne of Green Gables
Had a great predilection for fables,
But with truth as her armor—
Yes, Anne was a charmer,
Proficient at turning the tables.

Here's a limerick featuring Jimbo,
Who stands with his arms set akimbo,
In order to clarify
A point and to verify
You don't need the rhyming word bimbo.

"At the foes that I have I am pissed.
For my spitefulness mill they are grist.
I'll revoke each one's clearance!"
Result: the appearance
Of Trump's Greatest Enemies List.

She'd been ill (so I heard people say).
Hadn't seen her in many a day;
But I noticed she'd thinned
When a capful of wind
Blew her dressing gown out of the way.

Though Darwinian selection is blind,
It is not by committee, you'll find.
Can camels lack grace
Though designed with the place
Where they need to survive borne in mind?

Remember the unification?
No red states, no blue states, one nation?
Disagree with him now,
And you're evil somehow
And a danger.  (That's demonization.)

"What's the cause of your moans and your groans?
Is your bladder afflicted with stones?"
"No, desmopathy's hit
And inflamed—quite a bit—
Certain ligaments joining my bones."

The balefire that burned in the dark
Under moonlight untarnished and stark,
Crackling yellow and red,
Is, at dawn, all but dead,
Nothing left but a last weary spark.

Abe was thoughtful, contemplative, grave,
'Til the final full measure he gave.
He would analyze, weigh,
Each concern of the day.
Deliberator: friend to the slave.

Polly Parrot's life wasn't so great,
When an "accident" sealed the bird's fate:
One sharp shock, and then voom!
Now she lies in her tomb.
(She'd been nibbling at cables of late.)

We met on the Rue Madeleine.
We loved briefly, intensely, and then
Sadly drifted apart.
Now I look to my heart,
My eyes clouding all over again.

An eccentric old man from Calcutta
Liked to smear himself thickly with butter,
And affix home-baked bread
To both sides of his head—
Then he'd sandwich himself in the gutter.

In a nightmare, I cry out in pain,
With a madness affecting my brain:
While out cruising in Paris,
My wilful new Yaris
Smells water, then drives me insane.

Now the options are few and my time's
Running out and the nickels and dimes
Add to dollars. It's high
Time to choose, so when I
Bite the bullet—I've no time for rhymes.

Since he heard I was into cross-dating,
My girlfriend's big brother's been waiting.
Archeologically sound,
A site's age can be found
Using similar sites and equating.

Clarinetists are not hard to find.
But a good player? Two strike my mind:
The jazz clarinet
Of Bill Smith swings, and yet,
It's to Goodman, the King, I'm inclined.

A limerick must have its beats:
Its apt anapestic repeats.
So a limericist who
Has no rhythm is due
For efforts that meet with defeats.

Flotation devices are best
When they're lifting your chin from your chest.
If your 'plane was shot down
You'll be glad not to drown
With eponymous aid from Mae West.

Heeere we are! Not so baby but boomers—
Having swelled demographics like tumors.
Now we've aged and grown older,
Our days golder or colder,
We're all loaded, according to rumors.

The ballot in Michigan's vote
For the Dems has omissions; of note,
No top-tier Obama,
No Edwards — no drama.
The chance Clinton loses?  Remote.

Our new film's not a hit 'cause it's starless.
It's Cherless and Hedy Lamarrless.
While the plot is OK,
In an adequate way,
All the critics say, "Close, but cigarless."

A blue cat,  from a river or lake,
Is what folks who love fish fries can take
As the start of a party.
For appetites hearty,
Fried catfish—the best you can make!

This limerick earned stellar reviews.
Steven Spielberg says, "This I can use!"
In the musical, he
Says Brad Pitt will play me.
All in all, this is very good news!

Some believe that it makes sense to tether
Schools in groups, just like birds of a feather.
Educational parks
Get from others low marks,
Unconvinced schools work better together.

Graduation's a time for great cheers,
When you celebrate ending four years
Academically spent
Building skills to pay rent.
We'll all toast to your health—with some beers!

Stream-of-consciousness writing? Explore
What the twists of your brain have in store.
Eat your lunch waggin' tail
Of a Czech in the mail —
Seren-dippity-do you want more?

The afterguard works on the rear
Of the sloop while asea or at pier.
These are "seamen" who troop
On the aft deck or "poop"...
[Please insert your own punchline right here.]

Abumbral's the side of the velum
That the acalephs used to propel 'em
By pulsed water jettings
Through seawater settings
In the second World War's antebellum.

"To Transvaal, my old birthplace — good bye!
To America now I say: Hi!
Here I'm coming to stay,"
Elon Musk we heard say,
"As an Afro-American guy."

This carnage we wreak is insanity,
Which flows from our hubris and vanity.
We power our boats
Through a mammal that floats.
Oh, the crimes that we do to you, manatee!

You have plague, and a worm (parasitic),
Dropsy too, and your knees are arthritic.
Your ill humours converge,
And I urge you to purge—
This prescription is for an eccritic.

While I'm certain this won't come as news,
We have differing meanings for hues.
If you're jealous, you're green;
Turning red's venting spleen;
And the down-in-the-dumps get the blues.

Some lawyers cause lexical strife;
With jargon, their business is rife.
Take baron and feme—
It's used only by them,
While most others say  husband and wife.

Second oldest of Germany's towns,
Once a Roman camp founded on grounds
Near the Lechfeld, flat valley,
From Augsburg, an alley
Where noise of old battles resounds.

As soon as the wealthy man died,
All the mourners had wept and had cried;
But they'd planned and they'd plotted
So they'd be allotted
A stipend for life — a free ride.

Despicable Ness is so crude;
She's so morally loathsome and rude,
That's she's more shunned of late
Than that lewd Fawny Kate,
Or even that bad Hattie Jude.

When, to write the report, we commissioned
The senator, she requisitioned
A writer who'd make
Politicians all quake—
To expose fraud and waste he's conditioned.

A sponge who is learning to fence
May appear not ambitious, but dense.
Could it properly lunge
Without limbs? Would a sponge
Grasp a foil any way that makes sense?

As the scattering splinters fell flat,
Thought the ump, "I am smelling a rat."
Upon finding some cork,
He ejected the dork.
His one clue was that flung fractured bat.

M'lady, fflo Phelps hasn't yet
Come to terms with the fact that her pet
Uses teeth when he fights
And draws blood as he bites
All comers, including the vet.

I note with sporadical glee,
The basidiomycetous tree
Of the fungi was thought
To be two-branched. What rot!
It is rusts, smuts, and mushrooms (that's three).

My : is spastic, no fun,
& my .'s late, I'm undone.
Should I # in frustration
@ life's punctuation,
/ my wrists, or go ! with a gun?

I've got to get something for Jean
For her birthday next week. She is keen
On receiving a ring,
I well know. Here's the thing:
She'll be getting a washing machine.

Lovely cherry tree blossoms, en masse,
Are a joy to behold but, alas,
They're fugacious — don't stay.
See them falling away,
Fugaciously, down to the grass.

Dinner parties are rather old hat:
Sit around a long table and chat,
Dress up posh, drink fine wine,
Knife and fork used to dine?
Now a barbecue's more where it's at!

Those with doughtiness always are brave—
Think of Spartacus, rebel ex-slave.
Also: Churchill, Mandela,
And maybe that fella
At Wrigley who won't do The Wave.

Efflorescence: a versatile word.
It's a powder or rash, and I've heard
It's when flowers might grow,
When you show what you know,
Or when crystallization's occurred.

Writing limericks is first on your list,
And before even me they'd be missed.
I'm beginning to fret
That the most I can get
Are your afterthoughts — if they exist.

For partridges, pear trees, and worse,
I do not have the means to disburse;
Wrapping ivy and holly
Would surely be folly;
So your gift is this Christmassy verse.

Presentation that's sure to beguile,
That's young Beau of the self-assured smile.
In the smartest of threads
He glides, not to turn heads.
It's his special Brummellian style.

My club has most liberal views—
Seems it's prospered by breaking taboos,
And its hedonist climate
Means every damn time it
Makes news, it increases its dues.

Without straight parts or angles, you'll see:
A curve's easy, point A to point D.
It's a walk in the park—
Just a line like an arc.
What's the problem? How tough could that be?

Said the shepherd, "That's wolves I can hear.
They'll try eating the lambkins. Oh dear."
Then he turned to his collie,
The sheepdog, "Here, Molly!
We'd best get the flock out of here."

Hello Canada, now we are seven;
The first meeting here's warmer than Devon.
Pierre Trudeau can join
As we strive for the coin
That will buy us our monetary heaven.

Smokin' hot: hit five J's (one a trey);
Got ten boards and four blocks, by the way.
It's my first double double,
But my D gave me trouble:
Their two-guard scored 30 today.

"Old Devonshire, now known as Devon,
Is the south-western English coast's heaven:
Green fields and blue sky ..."
Says old Pilkington-Pie,
(Sir Oliver moved there, aged seven).

Fluffy bunnies are more than just cute—
They are twitchy of leg and of snoot.
They eat carrots by night,
With their pointy teeth bite,
And are musically evil to boot.

We're all on the same hymnal page,
And singing our hearts out on stage.
It's in church, where we blend
Many voices and send
Music soaring, our souls to assuage.

A flatulent Justice named Martin
Was unable to stop himself fartin'.
One gigantic retort
Blew him right out the  court
(Which delayed the proceedin's from startin').

A celestial body may be
Eclipsed or occulted. We see
It withdraw from our sight.
Its return to the light
Is emersion described to a T.

Your complaints are too hopeless and soapy; yuh
Will miss a great feast. Don't be mopey; yuh
Can go off on a spree;
This buffet table's free.
Of great food it's a true cornucopia.

This restaurant's cozy and small,
Neither posh nor a hole in the wall.
Penne pasta's the dish
(Portofino's delish!)
At our favorite bistro of all.

A buffer can counter a trace
Of alkali (a.k.a. base).
Acid and it
Both readily fit
In antalkali's neutral embrace.

My backside's protected these days
From parental attack—planning pays!
I wear pads in my pants
Just in case my dad plants
A sharp whack on my butt for my nays.

It's a crinolined penis (how ... sweet?)
Capped in slime with the stench of foul meat.
I dipped pen into ink-horn
To write of the stinkhorn,
And cooked bridal-veil stinkhorn. Let's eat!

Down the street there's a cute little pixie
Ringing handlebar bells on her fixie.
She thinks ten-speeds are "fakes",
With their hand-controlled brakes,
But her fixed gear ain't whistlin' Dixie.

"My contraptions are long and quite wide.
Stegosaurus can fit right inside,
And it's captured forever
At the touch of a lever!"
Thus Dana expounded with pride.

Perched atop the tonsorial chair,
With his scalp unexpectedly bare,
He has bawled about what
Was a barbarous cut—
A distressing removal of hair.

In a time long ago folks would gather
This plant, crushing stems for a lather.
Bouncing bet is its name
(Also soapwort—the same).
Now our soap's neatly boxed, if you'd rather.

It's that African palm oil you use
In your succulent sauces and stews
That instills in them flavor
That food critics savor
And favor with glowing reviews.

If your outlook on risk is dispersive,
Compound options make risking recursive.
For this hedge on a hedge
Gives the timid an edge —
At a price that is far from coercive.

My young daughter enjoys dot to dot.
It's a puzzle that's fun to a tot
Who delights in connecting
The dots. She's expecting
A masterpiece — I'm really not.

Stuff from Holland we often call Dutch,
Like their language, and cheeses and such.
While for sauces or glaze
We may say "Hollandaise,"
And the Dutch won't complain  very much.

If you pine for your place categorical,
And you fancy the flora arborical,
You've my leave (please feel free)
To bark out, "I'm a tree!"
If it suits you, with roots metaphorical.

An eyebrow(dash)raising reply
Came from Peter when Frank asked him why
He never could get
His dumb ass out of debt:
"Oh, I will — on the day when I die."

At the sight of a dental syringe,
I bite down on my teeth and I cringe,
With a hope it goes quick,
Cuz I can't take the prick
When that needle begins to impinge.

On my Czechoslovakian trek,
Met a native (quite long in the neck).
So I traded a snack
For a ride on his back.
You could say that I rode a lank Czech.

Said a gay to his ex, "You're a great man,
But surely you knew it was fate, man.
We've talked of our dreams
To form comedy teams,
But neither one wants to play straight man."

Ken contends his new friend's erinaceous
(Like a hedgehog). Does that mean "voracious"?
"One who grabs things and tugs"
Or "an eater of bugs"
Or "vexatious"? All four? Goodness gracious!

Addis Ababa, mid-Ethiopia:
Rastafarian smokers' utopia.
(Such a highly salacious
Pursuit—goodness gracious!
What opened this dope cornucopia?)

His music has rhythm and rhyme,
And it makes us feel happy—sublime.
Hoagy Carmichael's songs
Seem to soothe all life's wrongs.
And I'm sure they will last through all time.

The philosopher no longer wowed;
His acuteness came under a cloud.
So the great intuitionist
Turned exhibitionist,
Mooning the Philistine crowd.

A forethoughtful fellow takes care
To prevent future pain and despair.
Not complacent—instead,
He'll be thinking ahead.
For each prospect he likes to prepare.

Our house is too small for us, dear,
So we need an extension, I fear:
Just a space to hold balls,
Say, the size of St. Paul's,
With a swimming pool sunk to the rear.

When the fire alarm sounded this morning,
Norm's reaction was negative, scorning:
"Hell, it's only a drill!"
Guess he's sitting there still;
He refused to respond to its warning.

Dan (our first volunteer) had come forward.
He offered to ferry us shoreward,
And do it for free.
Then he charged us a fee.
We proceeded to usher Dan doorward.

Pre-Columbian history could boast
A true Native American host,
But when readership slumped,
Honest stories were dumped,
And then Akwas, I'm sorry, was toast.

Cynophobia—how I fear dogs!
I find them more loathsome than frogs.
So I give them wide berth,
Which causes much mirth
For those thinking I'm short a few cogs.

I'm skimming the waves in the bay,
With the wind in my hair and salt spray.
There's an easterly gale,
But homeward I sail,
With the centerboard holding the way.

Cupuliferous trees like the oak
Come with nuts in a cup. (Here I choke—
Opportunity knocks,
But my prudishness blocks
Me from telling a juvenile joke.)

If you take a deduction (or three),
Then a chargeback is what you will see.
And this item then clears
When your credit appears
(Just as long as they match to a T).

Said a greedy young fellow from Devon,
"This behavior won't get me to heaven!
When my body's cadaverous,
My soul will burn!  Avarice,
As sins go, is surely Top Seven!"

At the tannery, Louie presides
Over all of the crew. He decides
Who works where. He might say,
"You're a beamster today."
That's the guy who dehairs all the hides.

Make a beni-e print, if you please,
Using paper and wood from the trees,
In two tones (green and rose),
So my manual shows—
That's my guess; I can't read Japanese.

As an arbiter, I hold no grudge;
I decide fast, and then I don't budge.
Arbitrariness, mate:
Toss a coin, pick a fate—
It's the key to success for a judge.

I knew early on, beyond doubt,
I was gay, and I wanted to shout,
But I hid.  My best friend
Said, "This torture must end,
So wherever you are, please come out."

An aide to Lord Arthur of Dale
Choked on ice and became rather pale.
Said Lord Arthur, "I think
I'll add some to my drink,
So that what ails my aide aids my ale."

Here's an equitable outcome: it's fair.
We'll acquit all our debts, each his share.
What, you say that's unjust?
Then I'll quit, you'll go bust,
And our deal will go shaped (as in pear).

When cookie and milk hour comes,
It generates full little tums,
And also bright smiles;
But oh, what a trial's
The aggeneration of crumbs.

A cougnar is plying the Bay
Of Bengal, on its way to Malay.
It's a three-masted ship
Whose enjoyable trip
Is cut short when the mainsail gives way.

"Lest your wandering cause a delay,
Stick to Grandmother's path. Never stray."
Little Red disobeyed,
Met a wolf in a glade;
Her extravagance ended Gram's day.

In the corridors (so said) of power,
Stand incumbents, who, hour by hour,
Dread the wrath of the nation:
Their deoppilation,
Or heads up on pikes at the Tower.

Conservative Thomas DeLay
As a Whip made Repubs vote his way.
His illegal transaction
Led to this delayed action:
After years, he's convicted. (Hooray!)

"I'm under the weather," said Heather.
Her sickness soon spread; so together,
We both had the flu.
Though achooing, we knew
We'd get through it, two birds of a feather.

Paul Bunyan's young stepbrother Russell
Was lacking in Paul's famous muscle.
All Russ could uproot
Was a shrub most minute:
A dwarf tree, i.e., an arbuscle.

Wake up world, and the workers, unite!
Engels! Marx! Lead the communist fight!
But you're better off dead,
And not red, someone said:
Manifestos from leftos aren't right!

The bride wore her gown (with full train)
On a fifteen-mile hike in the rain.
She's called "Drabble-tail Heidi,"
Unkempt and untidy,
And possibly somewhat insane.

Friction-fit is the door that goes "in",
But it never stays shut.  Then I grin.
The solution is simple —
Extruding a dimple:
A pit or a bump in the skin.

Foreign languages give me the fits,
So I'm taking a course with Berlitz,
But it's moving so slow
That I'm tempted to go
To that speed-reading school they call Blitz.

He once sensed The Sweet Smell of Success;
The Defiant Ones thrive under stress.
Camera-shy he was not
Because Some Like It Hot—
And he even looked great in a dress.

When the serious thinker dispenses
With learning, true wisdom commences;
I therefore set out
On methodical doubt,
Taking resolute leave of my senses.

On this blue day my mood is blue, too...
Perhaps a new dress of that hue
Or an e-mail from out
Of the blue that's about
A few blue jokes that aren't very blue?

Please step over the threshold alone, Joan—
I can't carry you, dear, so don't moan, Joan.
It's not whether the doorstone
Is polished or raw stone,
But the fact that you weigh twenty stone, Joan.

According to current statistics,
Glottologists, skilled in linguistics,
Overbearingly yammer
'Bout other folks' grammar—
Provoking resort to ballistics.

I drive metal chicks wild and frenetic
As they're drawn to my shiny prosthetic:
Attractive and strong,
Made of iron (and long)—
Yes, my penis is ferromagnetic.

Smear paste waxes on tools to stop rust.
Between doubting and faithfulness: trust.
Arbitrarily placed,
Endless thoughts, unerased,
Keep my limerick writing robust.

Dress your garden in petals that wink
From their flat whorls or pom-poms. To think
That the bright China aster
Could make you the master
Of rainbows which just want a drink!

My abode's in the desert; alas,
On lush lawns we sad sand-dwellers pass.
Green blades grew in my yard,
But the sun beat down hard
And destroyed them: old sol's coup de grass.

When you're served a whole lobster, the meat
Is a challenge to locate and eat.
Yes, the tail's a sure bet,
But you must not forget
That the chelae (the claws) are a treat.

A huge stone in your duct's firmly stuck.
If untreated, you'll be a dead duck.
A choledochostomy, Paul,
Puts a hole in the wall
Of your duct.  No insurance? Tough luck.

I attended a séance, in session,
As a skeptic—I'll make that confession—
But I didn't find tedium:
I observed, in the medium,
Demonianism—that means "possession."

What becomes of placentas, post-birth?
It's a way to divide those on earth.
Adeciduates deliver
The fetal life-giver,
While contra absorbs all its worth.

A crude sign reads:  Clonorchis —  BeWare!!
Common worm lives in fish.  Guests Take Care.
In our Splendid Hotel
Chef cooks ALL meats quite well —
Thirty million infections — not rare!

Guess what, in vaginofixation,
Is stitched by a neat operation
To the abdominal wall?
This is also called col-
popexy  (a sexy salvation!).

Roger works both at night and by day.
He's two strings to his bow: extra pay.
It's a lot, single-handed,
But he's not double stranded;
That's used to describe DNA.

Our old bullwhacker's out on the road
With the oxen, transporting a load.
They may never get back
By that old, rutted track:
While he slept, it iced up. Now it's snowed.

A barrel in organs spins round
And its pins, with melodious sound,
Strike the keys; in a gun,
It's a tube that's no fun
To be facing, when blindered and bound.

I'm so proud of my dariole mold;
It's a cup into which I will fold
Globs of pastry creme goo
(Could be savory, too).
Warm or cold, it's a sight to behold.

If your friends are all fellows for whom
Catching up involves dwelling on doom,
Don't just sit there and fume:
Get some stuff that goes BOOM!
An explosive will scatter the gloom.

"I've a cold in the head," sniffled Mike,
"And my nose feels as long as a pike.
Sneezing mucus and goo,
Must I say Ah-tishoo!
Or just any odd word that I like?"

I can see it in other folks' eyes:
My dysmorphism causes surprise.
My extreme deformation
Brings endless frustration—
Lord, make me just one of the guys!

Two new rabbis have dressed their first deer:
She's been skinned and then emptied. They hear
Someone say, "Don't employ 'em,
They're hunters — like goyim.
Bet they're noshing on chitlins and beer."

In Bloom County, the characters sat
In a meadow. Political chat
Filled their days, but why read
Berkeley's liberal screed?
I can say in three words: Bill the Cat.

As an archer, I always insist
On a bracer protecting my fist;
I'm preventing a sting
By deflecting the string
From the sensitive skin of my wrist.

I'm a customer, new to these parts,
In a bar watching bikers throw darts.
So I brag about how
I'm a player, and now
I'm the goalkeeper. Dammit, that smarts!

Ammobium, found in the bowers
Down under, has wonderful powers
To please—called the winged
Everlasting, and ringed
With its silvery leaves, golden flowers.

Eyes still shut, she sees hookers and pimps
As she drags to the bathroom and primps.
With a blink and a groan,
Her own eyes catch her own,
And there's sorrow and pain in that glimpse.

From a dream about Wanda I'd woken.
Of her cigarette pants she had spoken,
Citing legs that were narrow
And straight as an arrow.
"You like 'em?" she'd asked. "Babe, you're smokin'!"

I swear that your treason will cease;
If I must, then your soul I'll release.
Although Cato's a wraith,
Carthaginian faith
Always finds Carthaginian peace.

It's government run by the rube,
And it plays like a show on the tube,
When Just Shoot Me meets Lost
And good judgment is tossed.
It's boobocracy. (Bush is the boob.)

The assembly instructions weren't clear.
All the cupboard components are here —
Arranged not, as you say,
The traditional way.
It's an art installation, I fear.

Eight polyps on each branch of coral,
With patterns delightfully floral,
Are alcyonarian.
Beautiful? Very—an
Undersea diver'd not quarrel.

Who could sit in the bouleuterion,
The courthouse of Athens?  My theory: an
Upper-class Greek
Who could civilly speak —
No barbarian Mede, nor Assyrian.

I'm a man who routinely inspects
What I hide with my private effects.
I like seeing the flash
Of the jewelry I stash
In the place where I also cache checks.

If you're troubled and having a beef
With the parish, and want some relief,
Kindly keep it in mind
That you're likely to find
In that bumbledom, nothing but grief.

Your chemistry quiz left you sighin'.
Get a clue that bisulfate's implyin'
Acid sulfate, no more
Than an HSO4,
Univalent, a negative ion.

Climatologists, nowadays storming
That trends round the world are transforming,
Have warned that emissions
Will make these conditions
Get worse: we must stop global warming!

The word drevil means "nincompoop, fool,"
And means "drivel" as well.  As a rule,
Writing language that's civil,
I use  nonsense for drivel,
Since drivel can also mean "drool."

After turning the box on its side,
Calvin churned out five duplicates. "Hide!
Make sure Mom doesn't see
That there's six now of me!"
"Yes, since one is enough," Hobbes replied.

An acephalocyst holds a worm
That is larval and lives for a term
In the fluid, then grows;
And as everyone knows,
Its eruption can make a man squirm.

My apartment's in great disrepair.
Pipes are busted, no water—I swear!
Though I pay all my rent,
My complaints make no dent,
As my landlord—he just doesn't care.

The front-runners riding the tides
On the Dem and Republican sides
Give me pause.  If those leading
In polls keep succeeding,
Then further America slides.

You pretend that you don't give a damn,
But your man is a batterer, ma'am.
Come on, cast the creep loose;
Why endure his abuse?
Meanwhile, call when you're next in a jam.

Up on land's where the frog went a-courtin'
(Molly Mouse was the girl he was sportin'),
But their date she did break
When he jumped in the lake:
That amphibian sex sent her snortin'.

As a familist, Flynn ranked supreme,
Held his household in highest esteem.
When the world sent its worst,
Flynn fought back, till he burst.
Love destroyed him, or so it would seem.

Risking bias, they based their projections
On stratified random selections
Of registered voters
At Land Rover Motors'
New showroom, with perfect complexions.

Conjoined twins? Sure, they're born and not made,
Though they could be. This thought I conveyed
To those fine people who
Bring the world Elmer's Glue.
They did not like my pitch, I'm afraid.

With cold work, a metal is steeled
Against stress that exhorts it to yield.
Once a blacksmith's fine art,
Now a work-hardened part
Will be tougher (unless it's annealed).

By Judge Larson the perp's ass was chewed:
"The crime you'd been planning was rude.
You were caught in the lab
Seeking thyroids to grab,
Thus attempting gland larceny, dude."

The australopithecine's one
Of the primates whose time is now done.
But he leaves me agape
Since I tend to go ape,
Man, for ape-men—those hominids stun!

He had noticed a crescent-shaped cell
In the blood smear of Walter Noel,
Who complained of anemia.
It would jolt academia—
As his boss, Dr. Herrick, knew well.

With resin and suet he packs
All this medicine's crannies and cracks.
Spermaceti is used
So the cerate stays fused.
He's preparing the whole ball of wax!

This circular triangle's fine—
All its vertices lie in one line!
It's a shape that looks marvelous,
Aptly called arbelos:
Beauteous classic design.

The screw found its pathway just right
And was countersunk, fitting real tight;
Topped with liquefied wood,
The job looks pretty good—
What I mean is, the screw's out of sight.

We've been married for sixty-five years!
Some ask how?  I say, "Laughter and tears,
Take one day at a time,
And my wife allows I'm
Really boss—'least that's how it appears."

You had feigned being gracious, benign,
And she deigned for her heart to be thine.
Your pretending benignity,
Offending her dignity,
Reveals that you're truly malign.

In ASCII, the sort order goes
In a way that you mightn't suppose:
There's a 3 before e;
You have T, then your p;
& + - before all of those.

Acapulcans like puffing on "gold."
That Mexican weed, man, is bold.
It's primo, muy bueno,
A ganja volcano!
It'll light up the joint (so I'm told).

Certain therapies draw patients out,
And for demons go questing about—
For results abreactive,
Hard-won and attractive—
Cathartic, they feel, beyond doubt.

B sharp Major was majorly pissed:
They'd omitted his name, he'd insist.
"My Concerto for Harp
In the key of B sharp?
I can't C why it's not on the list!"

Remember Macbeth's lady wife,
Who cold-bloodedly proffered a knife?
She didn't think twice
As she offered advice
To her husband to end Duncan's life.

When amyloid beta attacks,
In addition to aggregate plaques,
It embrittles the brain's
Little vessels and veins;
Then one's life slowly drains through the cracks.

I'll support you whatever you do.
We'll be wrestling teammates, we two!
They are wrong, you are right,
So it's worth a tough fight:
I shall go to the mat, dear, for you.

Mel, the chef at the Bellevue Hotel,
Makes a helluva sauce with duxelles.
Mushrooms, onions, and shallots
Delight the guests' palates—
Beef Wellington sells very well!

At the party, I'm drinking amara.
I'm a hit with my lampshade tiara.
From the rooftop, I clown:
"It's a single step down"
To the sidewalk below. Sayonara.

As a baker, Chef Brockett's no wimp.
With the icing on cakes he won't scrimp.
He makes snacks just for fun
And shows kids how it's done.
(Real life polio gave him that limp.)

An Indian bigwig named Chopra
Made a fortune by dealing in copra.
His exploits were snappy;
His ending was happy.
His life made a good comic opera.

I'm in doubt what this rhyme is ...
Makes me pout, there's been so much left ...
It seems such a ...
I put all the ...
On ellipses, of that there's no ...

You must follow these terms on release:
Your unlawful behavior must cease.
We're letting you go
But we think you should know
You're bound over. You must keep the peace.

Some boost eastside:  "The best side of town!"
Adding, "West, that's the worst!" and they frown.
High-rise dwellers boast least
Of North, South, West or East;
They're more likely to push "Up" or "Down."

My wife Jean makes a wonderful bean salad.
Our guests often say, "What a mean salad!"
Three or four types of bean
(Of course, cooked) keep me lean;
Plus it's yummy. I call it "Jean's Keen Salad".

Deglutitory's a hard word to swallow.
It means aiding ingestion. You follow
A big PBJ
With some milk and you pray
It won't stick to the sides of your hollow.

It's a press conference. Such electronics
To capture G. Dubya's bushonics:
His syntax that's tangled,
His grammar that's mangled,
And that's not to mention his phonics!

My heartbeat has phases: one's frolic;
The other's depressed, melancholic.
With contraction I'm happy,
But then I feel crappy
And sad when my heart's diastolic.

In El Salvador, it would appear,
There's a town by this name lying near
Two volcanoes, but gee,
It is also a tree:
Conacaste, the elephant ear.

I'm a masochist, dear. What you do
To hurt me is fine — naught's taboo.
And by using your feet,
You make my life complete;
I love getting a kick out of you!

A philologist wrote in his journal:
"I'm hoping these thoughts, diuturnal,
Will much longer be heard
Than this fusty old word—
It's the lexical worm in the kernel.

"Now go short," said the broker to me.
"That weak stock's overpriced, as you see:
Sell some shares you don't own
While its high, on a loan;
Buy back later — you'll be the vendee."

An accipiter flies, doesn't walk;
Takes sparrows and such (how they squawk).
Of those fierce birds that bite,
It's not falcon, nor kite,
Neither eagle nor owl, but a hawk.

They had scrambled so hard for the puck
That by accident someone got struck
In the face with a stick.
Retribution was quick —
On red ice, both the teams ran amok.

Oh garçon, how I wish to accrue
Some condiment knowledge from you.
It's the mustard we ate —
Have you served it of late?
I've a feeling you have — Dijon vu!

He's attractive, the critics all say,
In a pleasantly eye-catching way.
Now his goodliness serves
To bring roles he deserves.
Only "pretty-boy" parts does he play.

I caress her so softly and caringly;
She recoils and she leers at me glaringly!
She clearly detests it!
She never requests it!
(I only attempt it quite sparingly.)

He's obsequious, no one disputes;
How he fawns o'er execs in their suits.
He's a low-hanging fruit picker —
God, what a bootlicker!
You'd think that they wore chocolate boots.

Al's an anchorite, lives like a moose
In the woods, a religious recluse.
As a hermit, he'll spend
Days in prayer without end,
But for me, I would say, "What's the use?"

When your cells self-destruct, you can't guide them,
Since the enzymes the cells have inside them
Are just doing those things
That autolysis brings.
So don't fret if you cannot abide them.

To the DEXA test now we should turn
(Your bone mineral mass our concern).
Dual rays have a hand in
A bone-density stand-in;
Hip and spine fracture risk we discern.

I believed I might get off the hook,
But it seems I was badly mistook.
Said my dad, "You're a crook.
My whole grass stash you took!
To the woodshed — such thefts I won't brook!"

Someone tickles her toes. No-one there!
Now small fingers are pulling her hair.
Does her child behave selfishly?
No — rather elfishly;
He's a mischievous child, so beware!

You can eat your eggs scrambled or fried.
Either way, down your gullet they'll slide.
Whether soft- or hard-boiled,
Deviled, poached (No! Not spoiled!),
You won't know which you like 'til you've tried.

On our roads tens of thousands are hurt,
Maimed or killed every year—stay alert.
One number, simplistic,
An accident statistic,
Won't wash out the blood from one shirt!

Distinctive red hydrogen light,
Though light-years away, is in sight:
Some nebulae glow
By emission, you know.
It's electrons that make them so bright.

Frank was drunk as a fiddler. They say
This expression comes down from the day
That a fiddler might be
Paid in liquor, you see.
Surely that's why so many would play.

No need for suppressing so manically
What your stomach must issue organically —
It's a bodily function,
So feel no compunction
Whenever you're belching volcanically.

I'll tell you with all due sincerity,
My fingers are lacking dexterity.
My skills alphabetic
Are truly pathetic.
At the keyboard, I type with temerity.

If your humour's expressed in the way
Of a flippant intended display
That just doesn't endear,
And folks don't want to hear,
That's facetious defined, I would say.

A Droodle's a sketch — a device
Devised by the great Roger Price.
Make it cryptic and cute;
It absorbs the astute.
A surprising few lines will suffice.

With a strike like a fast-darting adder's,
He is flicking his way up the ladders
Of amateur sport
On the badminton court.
You might say that he's badass at badders.

Almost all situations arising
From attempts to be self-aggrandizing
Have unpleasant results,
Such as sneers and insults,
Both befitting and hardly surprising.

Alocasias are grown by my aunts,
And with one of those tropical plants
Sporting leaves like a heart,
They'd reluctantly part
If you sent them a modest advance.

Whenever you're feeling inventive,
Your pride may become the incentive
To finish your work.
You will find, if you shirk,
That your pride is for sure discontentive.

Find a bird's egg; crack open the shell.
See the yolk and the clear stuff as well.
The clear substance in there
Is albumen or glair.
Thick and sticky, it's kind of a gel.

Our stallion was sadly a dud
When we offered him out as a stud,
But he's simply amazing
Depasturing—grazing
So fast we have cows chewing mud.

The camass: a beautiful lily
With blue and white blossoms so frilly.
The old Indians ate
The bulbs, but of late
I make pretty bouquets for Aunt Tilly.

Biculturalism succeeds
If the attitudes, mores, and creeds
Of two different groups
Aren't so hostile their troops
Rip a country apart and it bleeds.

In the court folks were forced to agree
That the land now belonged just to me.
The deforciant? Fined!
And the concord's now signed
So my use of that land's trouble free.

Abbreviation is such a long word
That its function is often transferred
To the shorter-by-far
Spelling ABBR.,
And abbrev., an abbrev. quite absurd.

A butterfly valve has its uses:
(Effective in chokes, not in nooses)
For controlling the flow
Of the stuff that should go
Through a carb, or a tube, or the sluices.

San Diego's a cape that lies on
The northeasternmost tip of Taiwan.
The Spaniards once came
And bestowed this fine name—
It remains, though the Spanish are gone.

Said my law school professor, "Acquis:
That upon which all partners agree.
It constitutes all
EU law, wall to wall."
"Is it French?" asked a ditz.  (That was me.)

Cacodoxy: word that's a proxy
For heresy.  Think of that foxy,
Heretical teaching
With influence reaching
Each poxy malfeasant and doxie.

Years ago, when I still was in school
I was taught an invaluable rule:
When you use epagogic
Approaches to logic
No one ever will think you a fool.

The cover-up, massive, not teeny,
Directed by Nixon, the meanie,
Was never complete
(From the head to the feet)
Like the one worn above a bikini.

If you're seeking to learn, or to know,
The state of a metal on show,
There's no need to feel vexed:
Docimology text
Will aid you wherever you go.

In the alley where Callie had been,
She could hear every drop of a pin,
And the fall of each ball
That was toppling them all,
Rolled by bowlers whose goal was to win.

The antiterrorism debate
Has been used as a reason of late
To take, every day,
Some more freedoms away
In the name of securing the state.

Resembling the turbulent tide,
Ebb and flow that can not be denied:
Here the word is aestiferous
(Folks carboniferous
Think it means "heat" on the side).

Bilateral symmetry's the plan
For designing a woman or man.
There's two eyes and two shins,
Two ears and two chins.
(The last one's not how we began.)

It's not Epsom, I can't see a horse!
That's not baseball, it's soccer — what sauce!
On the racecourse a wicket,
Local sides playing cricket!
Is this Derby old hat? Well of course.

The breadth of a physical space
Is its distance across (which you pace).
Not the length or the height...
Now, let's get it right:
It's the width, when you measure the place.

At the sausage works, grinders were fed
A mechanic who'd keeled over dead.
I said to a crony,
"That's wrong!  That's baloney!"
"What's the wurst that could happen?" he said.

Ask a Scotsman with tartany hat
'Bout the noumbers, and where tae start at,
And he'll say (for a bevvie
Of Belhaven heavy),
"Och, ane is the one fer a' that."

The easy part's stealing, I'd say,
But the trick's how to do it away
(That is, sell to a fence).
All you'll get's a few pence.
As my pappy says, "crime doesn't pay...

A reporter (his word) up in Salem
Wrote newspaper stories.  He'd mail 'em
To papers he read.
"No, thanks," they all said,
Thus increasing his stockpile of balaam.

What's expository tells us (expounds)
A topic, say: hunting with hounds.
It explains and makes clear
What to wear, needed gear,
And locations where wildlife abounds.

If -caine is the medicine's end,
Then probably it can defend
A patient from pain,
While the ailments remain,
And comfort we then can extend.

I said to my sister, "Now really, Kate,
You should know the answer, or nearly, Kate.
It's as clear as can be:
It's a silicate, see,
With the prefix alumino-, silly Kate."

Though Webster's claims dogs can be called
With "alloo," I became quite appalled
When I tried it and found
That producing this sound
Summoned canines, but then I got mauled.

When a Cretian (or Cretan) you're meetin',
Be considerate framin' your greetin'.
These Greek island dwellers
Are sensitive fellers,
And to injure their pride's self-defeatin'.

A glide ratio's mainly a fight
Between weight, drag and lift. When your plight
Is what space can be crossed
Per the altitude lost,
It's the cost of an unpowered flight.

Without sight, king of singers with soul,
Ray's great voice surely stirred up the whole
Listening world with his songs
That have thrilled cheering throngs.
His cool sounds are beloved, pole to pole.

"With dibucaine I've been injected,"
The surgery patient reflected.
"That one spinal shot
Leaves me conscious, but not
In great pain while my knee is corrected."

The coconut crab lives on land,
But it usually hides in the sand.
With its pincers it cuts
Through the shells of the nuts
Fallen down from the trees on the strand.

A darshan adhered to a code—
A nutritional line that he toed.
"Only yeast-leavened bread
On the Sabbath!" he said.
"That's the day I have pie hallah mode."

If you seek a blue elder that's blue,
You will look a long time. But it's true
That the fruit appears so;
But then, what do you know —
'Neath the wax it is black. Oh, you knew?

To deactivate light, see here, Bruce,
You must turn off the switch — cut the juice.
The room will turn dark
(A needless remark —
It's the light you set out to reduce).

"A dichloride is sometimes a salt.
It has two chlorine atoms," said Walt,
"And it may be organic,
Or not; but don't panic.
For the differences, Nature's at fault."

Sustainable, is it? And that's
A good reason to eat it? You're bats.
It's brownish, and odd,
And nothing like cod.
It's coley — you feed it to cats.

Air corridors mark where to fly
(So those coming and going pass by)
And assign to your flight
A particular height;
They're the motorways high in the sky.

With long graceful fins and a tail,
This beast swims the sea without scale,
Gives milk and breathes air,
And the babes have some hair!
The cetacean: a dolphin or whale.

Swells in Bahstin all drive fancy cahs,
Sporting flat-screen TVs, built-in bahs.
Possession obsession
Dissolves their depression,
When they get a bad case of the blahs.

I've an eye for colleens, yes, it's true,
But my actions they oft misconstrue.
Just today I pinched Kay
Since it's Saint Patrick's Day.
I'm in green, but my eye's black and blue.

To each code flag a letter's assigned.
They mean different things when combined;
Hoist "JY" for "JX"—
Maybe "England expects"
Will be changed into "Kiss my behind."

A line through the cent of a circ
Is a diam in geom studs' work.
Drop the end of a word
And you may sound absurd,
So is diam a word, not a quirk?

In some fruits, a hard layer is grown;
It's the endocarp—scarcely well known.
(Peaches, plums have a need
To protect their core seed.)
Most people would call it the stone.

I've got circular breathing to master
For oboe—so far, a disaster.
It's air in through the nose
All the time the mouth blows.
But I faint. Must my nose-work be faster?

If Sonny and Cher had a spat,
If her Mackie dress made her look fat,
She was not one to feud
And no meltdown ensued.
Now, wasn't Cher noble 'bout that?

"Sweet Miranda, admired and adored..."
Murmurs Ferdinand, wonder outpoured,
As he rests from his work.
Witness Prospero lurk —
And he's glad his commands are ignored.

To sad outcomes I'm often resigned.
(The blown mind in room 9 comes to mind.)
When you're shot in the head
And just this side of dead,
Adios you can kiss your behind.

This color is listless and weak;
It's not vibrant, the trait that I seek.
I want people to stare.
Will you deep-dye my hair?
I do dare to be truly unique.

He's a clown, with his jests and buffoonery,
A wag and farceur—but the sooner he
Learns that his jokes
Ain't that funny to folks,
Then the sooner we'll stop our lampoonery.

Courts of honor are run by a group
Of officials who work with a troop,
Giving badges and pins
To the boy scouts, whose grins
Lead their parents to holler and whoop.

If you ask me about Chamonix,
It's the place where you'll cherish to bix:
In the Alps you can hike,
Go downhill on your bike,
You can paraglide, bobsleigh or skix.

I recollect lives in odd pieces,
A miracle called anamnesis.
The reason is plain —
My name's Shirley MacLaine.
Stick that in your doctoral thesis.

Unless yours  falls on 2-29,
You get one every year, by design,
As did Shakespeare. So see,
When it's 4-23,
I shall toast the Bard's birthday with wine.

What aeolian processes do
Is quite far past the scope of "Ah-choo!"
A ten-thousand-year breeze
(Not just one little sneeze)
Makes a rock shine in black like a shoe!

This here autopsy shows you're well-fed;
Nothing's broken, nor lumpy, nor red.
But the one thing you're lacking
(Which led to your packing
It in) is the thing called your head.

Ectogenesis means, without doubt,
"Giving rise to, or forming, without".
But then when, from within,
New structures begin,
Endogenesis says what's about.

Carl Jung said that getting to know,
Through our middle-aged years as we grow,
Gender features we hide
(They're our opposite side)
Will free energy sleeping below.

As, alarmingly, Peer Gynt advanced,
En arrière—moving rearward—she danced.
She drew quickly away
With a graceful chassé.
Her pursuer stood rooted—entranced.

The pose you have struck is cothurnal
And speaks of a darkness internal.
But, with all due respect,
Your performance is wrecked —
Has no tragic effect — at a urinal.

Though I'm fifty and live on my own,
When Aunt Jacqueline visits, I moan,
And I groan, and I flinch
When the crone gives a pinch,
And then cackles, "My dear, how you've grown!"

Walk through burweed that grows between rocks;
You'll acquire a memento that shocks.
Little fruits full of stickers
Will stick to your knickers,
And cling to the tops of your socks.

A tribute to muscle and guile,
The cyclopean masonry style
Featured walls made of boulders
Sans mortar, where shoulders
And mettle were put to the trial.

I went back to square one — had to halt
And start over.  A prankster at fault,
I knew, when I tasted,
My efforts were wasted —
The sugar container held salt.

Sure, I'm drinkin' all night, and I'm wishin'
I could quench this great thirst. My condition
Is dipsosis. I swear,
And I'm tellin' ye square,
It is medical — ask me physician.

What is the plight of the tree in my yard?