[RCL]

A Perfectionist’s Hair

When thirteen, he still displayed
his “trailing clouds of glory”
and obsessively replayed
William Wordsworth’s theory.*

Blessed, he bore long curly hair,
envied far and wide,
and groomed it with cosmetic care,
black locks his greatest pride.

Hair had merged his arching brows,
but it was daily plucked
and thinned until it was two rows—
the unibrow was shucked.

Cheeks and chin were bare of beard,
the smoothest in his class,
but he was just a classic nerd,
a hapless horse’s ass.

*In “Ode: Intimations of Immortality...”

[RCL]

Poem Pong

I post and wait
And wait and wait

You post a crit
You think is fit

I read your words
think some are turds

You think it’s weak
I think you reek

I craft new rhymes
You call them crimes

You fault the measure
I think is treasure

I post a rant
You say recant

I find your crit
Is all legit!!

I then revise
Revise revise

Five versions strong
That ping and pong

From crit to draft
To me gone daft

I know it’s best
To let it rest

But love the game:
Always the same.

[Michael Tyldesley]

I've only just discovered that we can post parodies and limericks without breaching site rules. Yay!

I dedicate this to anyone who's ever been banned from anywhere.

Epitaph for a Banned Forum Member

Do not click on my page and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep,
I am the smiley that you post,
I am the key you tap the most,
I am the joke that got deleted,
a swear word not to be repeated,
I am, perhaps, a hidden guest,
on other sites I beat my chest,
Each time your CPU shuts down,
I am the final sigh fan sound,
Do not post on my page and cry,
they’ve banned me now, I can’t reply.


https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/do-n...rave-and-weep/

[Gail White]

Looking through old books, I found this one written in "Easy Marks" in 2008:

Song, in Imitation of Christina Rossetti, and Beginning with a Line by Edmund Wilson

My brain is like a piece of cheese
That quivers with a million mites.
My brain is like a fast ballet
Where all the dancers split their tights.
My brain is like a Ferris wheel
Whose rusted gears have ceased to work.
My brain is bleaker than all these
Because my love is such a jerk.

My brain is like a wildebeest
That hears a lurking lion roar.
My brain is like a movie crowd
Stampeding for the exit door.
My brain is on a shopping spree:
The birthday of my life has come!
Because my love is such a jerk
And finally I've dumped the bum.

[Roger Slater]

Now that this thread had been roused from its slumber once again, I might as well add my Rilke/Barbie parody. (I wrote this way before the movie). Note that it uses the same rhyme scheme as Rilke's version with Apollo.

ARCHAIC TORSO OF BARBIE

We cannot know the famous plastic face
in which her eyes once swiveled. Still we find
her headless body's not exactly blind
but seems to peek out from the flimsy lace

in which some girl once dressed her. It's a fact.
Or else her bosom's bump would have no charm
and you would not harrumph with such alarm
to note the parts her nether regions lacked.

Or else you would not find it so aesthetic
to contemplate what plainly is synthetic
as if it were a creature that is real,

with all a living creature's woes and joys.
Or else you would not see her sex appeal.
She's winking at you. You must change your toys.

[Gail White]

MR. HOUSMAN SOCIALIZES

When I attend a wedding,
and see the chancel bright
with girls in gaudy dresses,
the bride in blatant white,
I shudder at the sight.

The bridegroom, who most likely
went drunk last night to bed,
must now be contemplating
his wedding night with dread
and wishing he were dead.

Life's hazard, bridal couple,
now stares you in the face:
the risk of propagating
Creation's first disgrace,
the feckless human race.

What profit is in adding
another beating heart,
more lawyers in the law court,
more merchants in the mart,
bad politics, worse art?

The money spent on offspring
can never be repaid.
Your heirs will disappoint you,
and make you wish you'd stayed
a bachelor and maid.

Repent while time can serve you,
this morning's marriage oath…
And now to eat this sickening
white sugar cake I'm loath.
Goodbye, and bless you both.

[Andrew Frisardi]

This one of mine was published in New Verse News back in 2016, but is unfortunately still topical.

Don's Posture

The world is scourged with the posturing of Don.
He will lash out, like tinsel in crass lights.
He heckles into hatred, with a wreck of rights
Crushed. Why do some then now not call his con?
Civility has gone, has gone, has gone.
All is seared with words; bleared, smeared with sleights;
And wears Don’s smirk and shares Don’s smell: our sights
Are low now, nor can truth tell, being pawn.

And for all this, his flatulence is never spent.
There live the vilest gases deep down him;
And though the last lights off the campaign went
Oh, curses, at the brown rim backside, brim—
For the Wholly Self-Engrossed over the bent
Truth broods with loose mouth and with ah! cruel whim.

[Ann Drysdale]

Don's Coiffeur? Brilliant!

[Gail White]

Cat on my keyboard, keyboard cat,
I won’t be working today. Instead,
I might have been reading, or still in bed…
for there you sat,

and laid your head down along the edge
of the keyboard, staking a silent claim,
knowing I wouldn’t be put to shame
by breaking the pledge

and covenant made between you me:
I am your person and you my cat;
you are the ruler and that is that
eternally.

[RCL]

Very cool, Gail.

Frost on my window, window frost!