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Tuesday, April 3, 2018

Clues (A Nonsense ABC Expressed as a Crambo)


A’s for the ape. Ray crept – caped! -- down the drape,

consummated his caper, then made his escape.

Abnegating the grape, Ray'd been staying in shape.

Mapes, the gatekeeper, videotaped it (Ray's jape).


B’s for the beard. Crime career nearly queered,

Pier, as feared, engineered it (a shear of his beard).

Dierdre sneered as the austere Pier – sheared – reappeared.

Cheerless Kier, leering, jeered, “Dear, dear: seriously weird!”


C’s for the child I’d misfiled under ‘mild’

whom unreconciled psychics reviled as beguiled.

“For awhile, Pyle’d not smiled,” sighed Childe Harold de Wylde

(Since Pyle died, Childe’s decided, “Pyle’s piles had been filed!”)


D’s for one drowned whom a flounderman’s brown hound

found – crowned and aground -- in Quowtown’s renowned sound.

Zounds! The thousands of pounds Browne found ‘round ‘bout Xaone Mound

helped bring down the clown’s fun’ral expense, I’ll be bound.


E’s for the earl (christened Burl) whom rur’al churl Cyr’l

found curled up in church tarted up like “Merle’s Girl.”

Surly Burl’s curls, unfurled, skirled like mother-of-pearl,

while their twirling purged Fleurwell: Sir Fleur sure did hurl!


F’s for the furs. Coeur’s chauffeur, Merce, avers

he o’erheard her assure the Third Curate of Tours

how hers were from Sir Herb. It occurs terce Merce errs:

hers Coeur lured from the Kurtzes, curt restauranteurs.


G’s for the goat “table d’hote”ing the note

haute Lord Mortimer wrote before g’rotting Dot’s throat.

Said note read, and I quote: “I vote no more to tote

what’s verboten: (signed) Mo’t.” (Also missing: Mo’t’s coat.)


H? For the hand –tanned – Rand scanned from the grandstand,

commanding the handbag with nine-hundred grand.

That damn dandy ha’n’t planned to abandon Dan’s van.

Man! That had to be Sandor: I’d branded that hand! 


I’s for the imp “mite ein grin und ein gimp.” 

He’s the pimply lipped pimp whose chimp’s pinching Jim’s shrimp.

Sift your usual suspects: walks one with a limp?

I’m convinced Sgt. Blymp: you’re a dimwitted simp.


J’s for the jam, ma’am, a ton if a gram!

That’s what jammed our li’l femme – Grammy Graham’s wee lamb.

Pam got flattened – ker-blam! – lying crammed in her pram.

(The damn’d monster responsible’s still on the lamb.)


K’s for the king. Rex reported last Spring

how he’d “misplaced” his ring after dinging the thing.

Bling’s since turned up – ka-ching! – on some pawnbroker’s wing.

Who’ll lay odds Major Klahdz gets His Highness to sing?


L’s for the leg which the pregnant nun Meg

mused she’d used to seduce Reggie Weggman, a yegg.

Check these negs! Far from vague: Sister Meg’s leg’s a peg!

Oui…ze omelet, she begs pour ze break of ze egg.


M’s for the moon. (En Francais, c’est “la lune.”)

It our shrewd Sioux “assumes” loomed, balloon-like, last June –

then impugnes me “le fool” and “le clueless baboon.”

Well, ‘twas prune-black that night, Chief. No moon rose till noon.


N’s for the net Vet Bette lets on she set

To prevent Annette’s marmoset wrecking her fete.

Yet Bette’s net went unset. Let me bet: ‘Nette’s pet met

with “a fate wois’ than deat’”: Josette’s deft bayonet.


O’s for the oar with which whoremonger Thor

swore he “sawr” Senor D’Or, ‘board the S. S. Lahore,

floor the War Commodore, mooring Moore at Death’s door.

Place no store in Thor’s story: D’Or’s oar was on shore.


P’s for the pit where li’l Whitney DeWitt

has insisted he’s seen Hittite hieroglyphs writ.

I submit whit’s a git. Quit the shit! Pit's unlit!

Blacker (more than a bit) than an blackamoor's tit.


Q’s for the quince bit by Vince, once a prince,

as he clipped mezzotints from Flint’s Septuagints.

Yet this dish evinced hints: a mint set of his prints.  

(Plus – don’t wince! – Vince has since failed to floss or to rinse.)


R’s for the rain Kane claims o’erflowed the drain,

thus effacing the stain tainting Jane’s counterpane.

That Ranier wasn’t slain’s now insane to maintain.

Still, no-brainers (like, “Were Wayne’s chains feined, Zane?) remain.


S? For the scream oral testaments seem

to reveal was unreal: the accused “had a dream.”

Yet that scream was no dream, just one seam in Bea’s scheme,

lest Rhee’s semen be seen on Leigh’s lychee ice cream.


T’s for the twins, distant kin of the Quinns,

two whose winning grins misevince sinister sins.

Yes, they did Timmons in, in implanting pink pins,

dipped in thinned carotene, in their victims thin shins.


U’s for the urn Verne, Sir Ernest’s nurse, learned

could depart and return when Verne twirled Miss Hearn’s fern.

There the taciturn Dern hid the undiscerned quern

he’d soon turn on the burned stern of Journeyman Byrne.


V’s for the vase where the Bishop of Thrace

placed his mace. Oh, Your Grace: what an ace hiding place!

After Matins, Bish flattens his archbishop’s face.

(Google “U is for urn” for a similar case.)


W’s wire required by Meyer.

Prior Dreyer hired Meyer (“The Highflyin’ Friar”)

to walk the tightwire, then to set it afire.

Meyer tried...but expired in the choir. How dire!


X? For the ‘xi Tee decoded as ‘phi,’

casting guilt for Dee’s thievery spree on Wang Lee.

‘Neath Bea’s third degree, Tee conceded the ‘xi.”

Now the digit of guilt seems to indicate…me.


Y’s for the yair where the charge d’affaire

shares, with devil-may-care heiress Sarah’s au pair  

an éclair – then, like Earhart, melts into thin air.

(As, I swear, has fair Sarah. Say…has she an heir?


Z’s for the zoo where Druse Hugh’s clueless coups

slew two ewes, stewed two shrews, abused caribous, too,

chewed out kangaroos, cockatoos. Killer bees? Few!

But those few Hugh’s confused crew let loose in the loo.

Hommage a Domino or Fats's Friends Don't Fast (A Nonsense ABC)



October the twenty fifth, year of Our Lord

sev’ral thousand and seventeen: Fats’s closed chord.

Still, though Fats be defunct now, long-lived be his heirs,

all choice chanteurs whose chassis approximate pears…

and whose surnames – i.e., the last halves of their names –

bear resemblance to some of my favorite games.

Note that many, as Fats did, pianofortes play.

Hey! Let’s hear ‘em before they get carried away:

AmpleAss Agon drips cream on the keys.

Backgammon Beefcake’s a black Deluise.

Check Chubby Checker! He lists as he twists.

Dumpy Dice comps with pluponderous wrists.

Enormity Euchre rolls Porky Pig eyes.

And who’s “Fatso” Faro? Just two of the guys. 

Gargantua Go belts his blues from a barrel.

Hefty Hearts hollers “More pie!” (At his peril.)

Inflated I Spy? Too much glut ‘round that gut!

Jumbo Jacks: wears he a fat suit or what?

Korpulent Keno? No, he’s no Jack Spratt.

“Lard” Ludo performs in E flat, for “he’s fat.”

Meaty Mahjong’s more than pleasingly plump.

No-lean Nintendo’s “no pork pie, all rump.”

Overstuffed Ouija’s a doughboy-in-training.

Pudgy Parcheesi’s obese…and still gaining.

Q. “Flabby” Qwirkel performs at a fat camp.

Rolypole Risk says, “I’d circumvent that camp.” 

SwollenCheeks Scrabble’s one oversize swinger.

TrebleTon Trivia? Arbuckle ringer.

Unskinny Uno’s like (you know) a whale.

Voluminous Vinci just busted his scale.

Wellpadded Whist sings the blues about lipo.

XtraPounds X-COM… (No, that’s not a typo.)

“Yer-too-fat” Yahtzee’s one corpulent cove.

Zaftig Z. Zingo’s a potbellied stove.

Piano men/singers? Still oodles, all fat.

But their R&B repertoire? That’s where it’s at.

Events...Events (A Doggerel)

Take note: what's Potus dread the most?
Foul deeds by dissidents?
Nope! Let's be clear: Drumpf’s greatest fear? 
Events, my dear...events. 
Need Drumpf beware the Koch-choked air
petroleum augments?
You heard it here: Drumpf’s greatest fear?
Events, my dear...events.

Apologize for all the lies,
the fake news he invents?
Nope! What's Drumpf do when day is through?
He vents! Mon Dieu: he vents: 
"So sad" (Drumpf says) “are Congress's
advises and consents."
Far worse than they? Drumpf’s feet of clay:
Events, okay? Events. 

Be Donald's bane some coup de main 
by ISIS malcontents?
Though bad, by fa-a-ar more fearful are
events, Akbar...events. 
What scares the pants off Donald? Rants
by former presidents?
Nope! Worse than those, Drumpf duly knows:
events, my bros...events.

What fans Drumpf’s fright 'round three at night?
The ninety-nine percents?
Them he can bear. More feared are their
events, mon frere...events. 
So: what must you do to undo
the trouble Drumpf foments?
This message send when you attend
events, good friend, events! 

The message? 

Till Drumpf vamooses or relents, 
support all anti-Drumpf events!  

Equivocal Barbs (A Nonsense Rhyme)

  
Some words are equivocal. E.g., here's three plus three.  

One? Bobbie and the Riders of his (Benson's) B-Bar-B

Two? Zanzibar, between the Wami delta and the sea.  

Inhuman "Butcher" Barbie’s three. (Klaus? No one's cup of tea.)  

Valeria Lukyanova’s four: human Barbie, she.  

Five? Donald! Donald tweets the barb (he shuns the repartee).  

Six? Here I go into a bar because I need to pee.  

Equivocal? Yes! (Nor would Aristotle* disagree.)

     *At least not in his Categories, the opening lines of which
refer to this very subject. 

Losts & Founds: An ABC

     The Lost Ark Careless Hebrews lost the Ark  but Jones, a gentile, found it --  along with half a dozen nasty  Nazis runnin' 'ro...