“The Farmer’s Life”

The farmer leads no E Z life,
The C D sows will rot,
And when at E V rests from strife
His bosom will A K lot.

In D D has to struggle hard
to E K living out,
If I C frosts do not retard
His crops, there’ll B A drought.

The hired L P has to pay
Are awful A Z too;
They C K rest when he’s away,
Nor N E work will do.

Both N Z cannot make to meet,
And then for A D takes
Some boarders, who so R T eat,
That E no money makes.

Of little U C finds this life,
Sick in old A G lies;
The debts he O Z leaves his wife,
And then in P C dies.

— Stenography, January 1887

| Language · Poems

“The Last Bard of Dixie”

South Carolina poet J. Gordon Coogler (1865-1901) was widely mocked for this terrible couplet:

Alas! for the South, her books have grown fewer —
She never was much given to literature.

He complained,

Oh you critics! — If an author errs in a single line,
That line you’ll surely quote,
And will give it as a sample fair
Of all he ever wrote.

But he was bad everywhere:

On her beautiful face there are smiles of grace
That linger in beauty serene,
And there are no pimples encircling her dimples
As ever, as yet, I have seen.

His complete works are here.

| Poems

Why Not?

From a letter from English scholar Walter Raleigh to Mrs. F. Gotch, July 2, 1898:

Doe you lyke my newe phansy in the matere of Spelynge? I have growen wery of Spelynge wordes allwaies in one waye and now affecte diversite. The cheif vertew of my reform is that it makes the spelynge express the moode of the wryter. Frinsns, if yew fealin frenly, ye kin spel frenly-like. Butte if yew wyshe to indicate that thogh nott of hyghe bloode, yew are compleately atte one wyth the aristokrasy you canne double alle youre consonnantts, prollonge mosstte of yourre vowelles, and addde a fynalle ‘e’ wherevverre itte iss reququirred.

A later poem:

Wishes of an Elderly Man, Wished at a Garden Party, June 1914

I wish I loved the Human Race;
I wish I loved its silly face;
I wish I liked the way it walks;
I wish I liked the way it talks;
And when I’m introduced to one
I wish I thought What Jolly Fun!

| Language · Poems

Self-Described

Long-short-short, long-short-short
Dactyls in dimeter,
Verse form with choriambs
(Masculine rhyme):

One sentence (two stanzas)
Hexasyllabically
Challenges poets who
Don’t have the time.

— Roger L. Robison

| Poems

Subtext

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acrostic#cite_ref-WilliamBrowne_33-0

William Browne’s 17th-century poem “Behold, O God!” forms a sort of symbolic acrostic. The text can be read conventionally, scanning each line from left to right, but the letters shown here in bold also spell out three verses from the New Testament:

  • Luke 23:42: “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.”
  • Matthew 27:46: “O God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
  • Luke 23:39: “If thou art the Christ, save thyself and us.”

The three embedded quotes represent the three figures crucified on Golgotha, and the “INRI” at the top of the middle cross stands for IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDÆORVM — Latin for “Jesus the Nazarene, King of the Jews” (John 19:19).

| Language · Poems · Religion

“Unified Field Theory”

In the beginning there was Aristotle,
And objects at rest tended to remain at rest,
And objects in motion tended to come to rest,
And soon everything was at rest,
And God saw that it was boring.

Then God created Newton,
And objects at rest tended to remain at rest,
But objects in motion tended to remain in motion,
And energy was conserved and momentum was conserved and matter was conserved,
And God saw that it was conservative.

Then God created Einstein,
And everything was relative,
And fast things became short,
And straight things became curved,
And the universe was filled with inertial frames,
And God saw that it was relatively general, but some of it was especially relative.

Then God created Bohr,
And there was the principle,
And the principle was quantum,
And all things were quantified,
But some things were still relative,
And God saw that it was confusing.

Then God was going to create Furgeson,
And Furgeson would have unified,
And he would have fielded a theory,
And all would have been one,
But it was the seventh day,
And God rested,
And objects at rest tend to remain at rest.

— Tim Joseph

| Poems · Science & Math

A Tour of England

From reader Dave King:

A certain young lady of Prinknash
Was looking decidedly thinknash.
Her diet restriction
Had proved an addiction
And caused her to swiftly diminknash.

A hungry young student of Norwich
Went into his larder to forwich.
For breakfast he usually
Had bacon or muesli
But today he would have to have porwich.

An ethical diner at Alnwick
Was suddenly put in a palnwick
“This coffee you’ve made
Are you sure it’s Fair Trade?
And I must insist that it’s orgalnwick!”

A Science don, Gonville and Caius,
Kept body parts in his deep fraius.
He didn’t remember
And one dark November
He ate them with cabbage and paius.

A Frenchman now living at Barnoldswick
Was terribly partial to garnoldswick.
The smell of his breath
Drove one lady to death;
She fell from the ramparts at Harnoldswick.

A forceful young prisoner from Brougham
Was confined to a windowless rougham,
So, venting his feelings,
He bashed through the ceiling,
Dispelling the gathering glougham.

(Thanks, Dave.)

| Humor · Language · Poems

Anatomy

A limerick’s cleverly versed —
The second line rhymes with the first;
The third one is short,
The fourth’s the same sort,
And the last line is often the worst.

— John Irwin

| Poems