Clerihew #08: Fry

Stephen John Fry
Is a versatile guy
But couldn't be sorrier
He ain't a little Laurier.

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[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k-T8S0lEwQ]

A Grandfather's Guide to Poesy

Catching her kvetch thusly, we was keen to teach Kim a trick:
"Incapable of completing my poems am I, though they begin with promise."
We prescribed ye ol' family formula, Ocean-Heaven-Joint-Pun:

"To seek inspiration, seafare," advised we. "Hatch a Miltonian paradise.

Attempt cannabis. Should all fail, cast dignity aside and play on words.
Why couldn't you be a gent? All comely women of circular countenance
Spout perennial male poetry from moles located at midwicket..."
Pensioners' mouths, like air conditioners, only stop for autumn --
Free rolled the pearls of wisdom, and other spherical schemes.

Yet civilly did Kim nod her head and mutter,
"You do know this is my bread and butter",
Check the flow of thoughts said, and utter,
"But, Gramp, isn't that our bread and butter?"
Let her bright pink face to redden but her
Tone was even-keeled: "Bread and butter."
Her trouble wasn't, explained she, a deficit of lyrical themes,
But that she possessed an imagination with neither top nor bottom.
It chirped itself hoarse like a negligent mama cricket's kid cricket,

Spiced everything up and set off smoke alarms, like brown tenants;
Kibitzed, quivered and cooed with flying colours, like crayon birds.

Inheriting her clan's sonnet nose, doggerel ears and ballad eyes,
Inflated she with uncontrollable stanzas every revision -- ere quitting at v7.1.
"Sweet child, there is a fix as surely within your reach as your left palm is,"
We suggested pitifully. "Make your rhyme scheme symmetric."


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In case you missed it, here's another version.

Little Mortinsen

Now Mortinsen saw an octopus;
she behaved very odd.
Pray, boy, and make no fuss,
said the cephalopod.
See the pistol in this tentacle?
You, young man, I've been sentacle.
Mortinsen scowled, Mortinsen sighed, 
Mortinsen stood there glassy-eyed. 
His head was elsewhere, his eyes saw through she; 
he picked up the gun absently and made some sushi.

Mortinsen met a tramp whose vapours
with everyone disagreed.
About he walked reading newspapers:
they called him Encyclopede.
Do you know about, Mortinsen, sneered he,
What are your thoughts on and heard of the?
Mortinsen stretched, Mortinsen bent,
Mortinsen puzzled over where he went.
He removed his earphones and asked for directions,
and healed the poor tramp of his omniscience. 

Mortinsen encountered a pterodactyl;
it alighted on his bed.
Sir, it would appear I'm a fossil,
the angry reptile said.
Now and then I nap, and a few million years pass --
this time I wake to find me displayed under glass.
Mortinsen squinted, Mortinsen yawned;
the pterodactyl Mortinsen gazed beyond.
When at last he saw it he once or twice blinked,
fed it some birdseed and made it extinked.

Mortinsen dashed into a troika of dots;
their talk was elliptic.
They had no more than two or three thoughts,
all apocalyptic.
The planet, they cried, is growing ovoid,
to hatch one morning that none can avoid.
Mortinsen grunted, Mortinsen scratched,
the bombast of the dots he hadn't catched. 
He leaned forward, put his lips near 'em,
whispered So? and disproved their theorem.

Mortinsen came upon four little boys;
they seemed just as him.
They had his coiffure, they had his voice --
three of them were dim.
"Mortinsen, I your doppelgänger", "Mortinsen, you my clone",
"Our time machine works, Morty!", "Ich? Ein tzwin of your own."
Mortinsen mumbled, Mortinsen frowned,
Mortinsen smiled and jot something downed.
He pranced home with joy, his soul blithe as bubbles,
and cut off his big toe to tell him from his doubles.

Steve Leaves One More Outside Off-Stump

With his attitude at the wicket bourgeois,
Nothing lourgeois.

Clerihew #07: Higgs

Peter Ware Higgs
Learnt to wear wigs.
When he had those on,
No one brought up a boson.

Limericks -- #16, 17, 18, 19

There was an uninteresting girl from New Highs.
Visit New Highs, a gastronome's paradise.
They bake an exquisite pie.
Where was I?
An unint... try their French fries!

There was a planet-maker from Houston. 
He had some angular momenta but he'd ousnon.
The dark sides got cold,
Therefore he was told
He could only keep his job if a fouspon.

There shall be a queen from Florence.
To hate aging she will commence;
She'd slit the throat
Of anyone that wrote
Anything of her in past tense.

There was a young man from Kitts. 
There was a young man from Ritz. 
10
Men
Have appeared in these lines (in bits). 

Second Person Mingular

For your reference:

Collection	of	critters
Company	of	parrots
Crash	of	rhinoceroses
Culture	of	bacteria
Dropping	of	pigeons
Implausibility	of	gnus
Intrigue	of	kittens
Murder	of	crows
Parliament	of	owls
Pride	of	lions
School	of	fish
Storytelling	of	ravens

'Send me to a new school!' wailed the daughter trout;

'Not a chance!' said her pa, 'Can't simply saunter out

We've been here too long; our family records indicate

Every link in our lineage swam with this syndicate.'

'What school, blessed parent, are you talking about?'

'Why, the throng we occupy day in and day out!'

Amused viewer, you know what the littler fish meant,

Alluding as she was to her academic establishment.

The collective noun, in our race a stock curse,

Is amongst our fellow evolvers only worse.

Yet dare you blame Earth's lovesome creatures

For their short supply of English teachers?

A lone specimen of beast is shrewd and winning;

Cast him with his peers and his sanity's a-spinning.

You don't concur? You remonstrate?

Allow me then to d_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ 

Take crows. You often catch one flying

Between branch and antenna trying

To avert his pals, for nothing's absurder

Than knowing it takes two to murder.

Airplanes give me bad food and a dry nose

Yet that’s not why I shan't fly with rhinos,

For one per flight is already rash --

Haul more up and you've got me a crash.

Now how would you react, sir, if I state

You lack culture in private?

Yet such sociological delirium

Is the fate of the bacterium.

(a) Since three's a crowd and two company,

      Pair up your parrots, but don't clump any.

(b) Dissolve a parliament only if you're prepared

      To have an owl-pecked epidermis repaired.

(c) Never hurt a lion's pride;

      A few have, trying, died.

Haven't your doubts on the subject diminished?

Then don't leave yet, our business is unfinished.

You would presume it an elementary tact

To keep society out one's alimentary tract,

But pigeons of the same feather

Create a giant dropping together.

Mischief, though, is not their intent;

No, sir, that the lab mice invent.

Invention, ah, it fetches to mind the other crow,

The darker-plumed child of E. Allan Poe:  

The heart of the raven must be brimming with myth

For it's storytelling time always when he's with kith.

Yarns of the greatest intrigue would he tell,

Albeit on kittens does he hardly dwell.

[When, however, he slideth into truth-saying mode,
 He walketh the righteous, unsensationalist road;

An impossibility is banned off raven news.

(An implausibility is a band of ravin' gnus.)]

These coincidences, sir, cannot be random,

Hence quod erat demonstrandum.

A passenger on the Ark who had had his way

Resents it hard when he becomes a they.

Limerick #15: The Plight of the Classingtons

There was a young man from Limerick

Whose name was Classington Jim Eric;

For Mr and Mrs Classington, his rhyme-loving parents, when they brought Eric into our world sought for him a suitable middle name, and noticed their town's connection to humoury verse,

And as even all their love for the lyrical had never aided them to summon a word that for every syllable rhymed with their city's name [can you find one? Give it a shot], they concocted a brainchild: they settled on 'Jim' and advertised the toddler's name in reverse.

So the coincidence isn't quite chimeric.

Lofty Intentions

The known number of differences between a peak and an acme

is one.

It is akin to the dissimilarity between the turns of phrase 'Fire me' and 'Sack me' --

there's none.

The one is a word uttered by habitual hikers who in their devotion to scale altitude

are staunch,

The other used by unfit non-climbers who put on constant display, beside verbal aptitude,

their paunch.

This humble bard has authored a tune for the crooning benefit of the former crop;

hum it:

'Should you wonder how high, measure for every uphill step you take the vertical distance gained, have a sequence of these numbers jotted down and then when you reach the top,

summit.'

(As written in my mobile drafts on a solo trek up Spencer Butte.)

Spellbound

Jalapenos aren't spicy,

Nor a facade dicey.

A coup de grace will lend a handle,

And Hanukkahs kill the candle.

Negligees don't enchant,

Eons can be short and an angstrom can't.

But
Jalapeños are,

A façade is,
A coup de grâce won't,

Ḥănukkāhs don't,
Negligées do,
Æons can't and an ångström can.

The Bards that Moaned

'Take out the garbage yourself', said the poets.
'Pick up the children on your way back,
And stop asking me to do the dishes.
Make love I can, if need be --

But my domestic obligations end there.
I'm a poet first and a poet last.
All the time in the world need I to
Polish my rhymes, sharpen my metaphors,
Revise the metre, and alliterate.
What can you know of the joy of composition?
The rapture, the tears of cathartic fulfillment,
The comprehensive car-wash of the soul.
But do you realize how colon-clenching and
Time-consuming it is? Leave me alone.
If I were to die tomorrow, you would
Bury me with a poem in my chest

That never got to know the light of day
Or the scent of paper.'
Ergo, the wealthy man kidnapped them all
And put them in a spaceship.
'Now, ladies and gentlemen, you haven't
Anything to complain about', he smiled wide.
'All the privacy you please, and all of time
Lie sprawled at your feet. We shall fly to
Triton and back; that gives us nineteen years.
Slip a cushion beneath your bottom,
Get all that verse out of your bosom.
I hereby bequeath you the paradise
You sought and ached everyday for.'
Within the first year,
The poets killed themselves.
They had nobody to read them.

Thither Spat James Joyce

agreed a rose by any other

name would smell as

sweet

porcelain pots peddled under
synonyms make no difference to the
rod and the cone

a vodkamartiniwithasliceoflemonpeelshakennotstirred ordered as
whatever else would land the bastard a
wanton blonde

and a cadbury square etched with a
hieroglyphic logo still melts its way past
your wagger

while quentin tarantino mischristened

eugene moses bartholomew would scarce upset his
b.o.

(call messrs. clemens and dodgson what you will, love,
they continue to
tickle)

as shall quantum electrodynamics known to our chums at the edge of andromeda as some other
fertilizer yet speak
gospel

but an onomatopoeia by any other
name...
now an onomatopoeia by any other
name doesn't sound a tenth as
onomatopoeiaesque,
does it, miss capulet?

Clerihew #06: Bardeen

John Bardeen
Was fond of sardine
Try it: you, too, may turn wise
And fly out to Stockholm twice

Clerihew #05: Kirchhoff [NSFW]

Gustav Robert Kirchhoff

Made no time to jerk off.

He got himself dysfunction:

Could loop, but not junction

Let's Make a Deal

Inside your idle brain, come shine or mighty rain,
All work and no play all night and all day --
Hardly half a moment of sleep, you see!
Look for me in the details (or check in the fai retails)
When you're loathe to decide -- I'll then come stand beside,
Whilst over your shoulder looms the deep blue sea.

To your petty conceit placate I'll send my advocate
Who'd gladly plead your cases with one of many faces
Of which he has thirty-six, like a pair o' dice.
If lonely and laust, remember Comrade Faust --
You only need to sign on the dashed dotted line,
And I give you on this sorry earth a paradise.

Yet I seek no gratitude, only purple attitude
So that folk may call your air yours-truly-may-care;
How I shall then take care of you dearly!
But I must speak to you because on your soul there is a clause
That you may haven't knone: let's talk this over phone;
Just dial two-thirds of one thousand [well, nearly].

Culinary Wisdom

For the Discerning Madrasi in Yankeedom

Pico de gallo and idli

Is a combination deadly

(They fit like lock and keys)

Never munch on fries

When you lunch on rice

(They're as chalk and cheese)

Clerihew #04: Gavaskar

Sunil Manohar Gavaskar
Must visit Madagascar
He might its climate embrace
And have a few more Sunny Days

[One sometimes abuses one's license.]

Ack.ment

The last three poems were inspired by these jewels --
1, 2, 3, 4

At the Beach

A wave slides in, and covers

the Pacific dioxides of Si.

A boat in the distance hovers

like an oil drop of Mi.

Cheat Never in Medical School

or

Learn from Roberto's Exam Hall Misadventures

Poor Bobby -- would've turned out a fine Dr.

Weren't he caught in the act by the Prr.

Asked about his action

He thought on his feet,

Hesitated a fraction

And ate up his sheet.

For, you see, he wasn't quite the conCr.

Limerick #14: A Haunting Spectre

A Brief Peep into the Life of a
Member of the
Haunting Spectres Society

An abandoned abode was he put in c/o;

When there were prospecting visitors to sc/o,

He rip't out a shriek

And out they'd freak

You got to admire his lungs, or lack th/o

Calf Muscles

Sometimes they pull.
We know not why, or how.
But they make a splendid bull,
Or cow.

History of Progresses in Science, A Brief

Most were occidental,
Some, the other ccidental.

Clerihew #03: Obama

Barack Hussein Obama

Has sure a sense of drama

Not even would Abraham

Have dreamt he'd be Uncle Sam

Limerick #13: Kronecker

There once was a gent, Kronecker.

'Sir Succinct' was his moniker.

He invented his delta,

And told Levi-Civita,

'My tensor is laconicer'

Clerihew #02: Jackson

Michael Jackson

Had a black son

Who yet might

Turn out white

Clerihew #01: Feynman

Richard Phillips Feynman

Was no Simple Simon.

Asked to prove himself, he

Came up with Q.E.D.

{Every pun is intended}

Padma Shri 2009 for Arts

Art today be ash,
And artists, trash.
They art sick,
Their art sicker.

Limerick # 12: The Price of Oil

[One of my entries for Saarang Online Creative Writing Contest. The topic: 'Connect these three not-so-obvious ideas/themes into one single piece -- Schadenfreude, Shoes, Shame.']

The world wide web laughed itself dead
After this journalist stood up and said:
'Shameless moron W!
This is gonna trouble you'
And flung his shoes at the president's head.

One Day in a London Flat

'Good morning, sir,
Wake up!
Your coffee's in the
Tea cup!'

'Dash it, Jeeves,
It's just eight!
Until I myself rise
Just spectate!'

'Very good, sir,
I'd been remiss.
In passing, let me
But mention this:

Your aunt Mrs Travers said
She'd again call.
And an angry Mrs Gregson
Is in the hall.'