No Misses. Few Mses. But Mrses? Masses!
Meet Old Lady Moses. Wed Muses? Nine, sisses!
Meet Mickey’s mate Minnie. Here: grab two free passes.
Pa’s not on our list, though Pa's stepsister Tris is.
They’re Mrses all -- and all admir’ble lasses.
Meet Mrs. America, pregnant with twins.
As she’s six months along, she shows much more than chins.
Oh, she's packed on the pounds. And though someone else wins,
all recall Traci’s very original sins.
Will the real Mrs. Brown rise! (But which is it, please?
The first Brown raised a daughter. A second? Her knees.
A third proved unsinkable. One wore a crown,
while the last spelled her name with an ‘e’ – i.e., ‘Browne.’)
“Goodnight, Mrs. Cala-…” (Durante’s poor missus
makes do with adieus lobbed in lieu of Jim’s kisses,
as if she weren’t there) “…-bash, wherever you are.”
So: where is she? L.A.? UK? Ulaanbataar?)
Is today Mrs. Dalloway’s overdue do?
Hey! Let’s party! This hearty’s haut-hosted a few:
"The Voyage Out," “The New Dress,” and “A Summing Up,” too:
seems a real stream-of-consciousness hullabaloo.
Mrs. Ed is a wife –
and a horse, too, of course.
(When one beats a dead source,
do allusions lose force?)
Meet Mrs.
fforbes-Hamilton, pentangled gal.A third proved unsinkable. One wore a crown,
while the last spelled her name with an ‘e’ – i.e., ‘Browne.’)
“Goodnight, Mrs. Cala-…” (Durante’s poor missus
makes do with adieus lobbed in lieu of Jim’s kisses,
as if she weren’t there) “…-bash, wherever you are.”
So: where is she? L.A.? UK? Ulaanbataar?)
Is today Mrs. Dalloway’s overdue do?
Hey! Let’s party! This hearty’s haut-hosted a few:
"The Voyage Out," “The New Dress,” and “A Summing Up,” too:
seems a real stream-of-consciousness hullabaloo.
Mrs. Ed is a wife –
and a horse, too, of course.
(When one beats a dead source,
do allusions lose force?)
You’ll ffind one ffiffth’s patrician, one ffiffth’s ffemme-ffatal.
ffurther, one ffiffth’s impov’rished, one ffiffth’s muck-a-muck.
Audrey’s ffiffth ffiffth? I ffoster not one fflying ff**k!
Remember Hume Cronyn’s wife, Jessica Tandy?
And who can forget Dagwood Bumstead’s wife, Blondie?
Recall, too, please, y'all, Al’s wife Peg – Mrs. Bundy.
Now, which of the three rhymes with Sri Mrs. Gandhi?
Meet Mrs. Hudson, Doyle’s landlady/queen.
She assures Sherlock’s boxers and socks stock’s pristine.
She sautes Sherlock’s sausages, serves Sherlock’s tea.
She’s one royal Doyle goil – at 221B.
Meet Mrs. Ippi, wife of Ol’ Man River. Oscar Hammerstein,
for Broadway’s Tony-winning operetta Show Boat penned this line:
“O Ah gets weary…sick of tryin,’…tired of livin,’…skeered of dy’n”:
which works with Mrs. Ippi. (Not so well with Mrs. Nile or Rhine.)
Mrs. Jesus, Mrs. Jones:
each hoards her hubby, make no bones!
One groom’s a cuckolded pariah,
one’s a counted-on messiah.
Meet Mrs. Kurtz. Her husband’s dead.
Or so Pole Joseph Conrad said.
Surviving wives, though, must be fed.
(And left a husband’s third-best bed…?)
Mrs. Lovett? Gotta love it!
Censure? She’s deserving of it.
Cellar? Sweeney’s shop’s above it.
Todd’s bod? Furnace-wards she’ll shove it.
Greer uplifts Mrs. Miniver’s grin-stiffened lips.
Greer unwinds as Bob Donat’s divine Mrs. Chips.
Greer winds up Mrs. Darcy per Jane Austin’s quips.
(Even acts as herself in some MGM clips.)
Meet the former Mrs. Nice Guy. She’s been granted a divorce
from her husband, Mr. Nice Guy, who's a proven ass de horse.
Should she hew a new beginning (it’s a crowded labor force)
or pursue the old profession post a brief refresher course?
Meet Mrs. O’Leary, die frau mitt der cow.
Cath’rine kicked off a hot time in Old Town -- and how!
Her tall tale's untrue, of course, hist’ry knows now.
Withal, charr'd, Chi “re-tarr'd.” So long, Ciao-cago. (Ow!)
Mrs. Parker; Mrs. Peel. Emma’s fiction; Dorothy’s real.
Emma’s essence? “M Appeal.” Dot’s? A tongue of tungsten steel.
Has either an Achilles’ heel? Sure: Mr. Parker; Mr. Peel.
Meet Mrs. Quickly -- though female, a prick.
Selma’s shaken off slickly, and just in the nick.
Meet Mrs. Robinson. Koo-koo-ka-choo.
(Simon and Garfunkel sing, so I do.)
Indiscreet Mrs. Robinson, vamp of her ‘hood.
(“Rhymin’” and Arthur sound sure, so I should.)
Back seat Mrs. Robinson. Hey, hey, hey, hey!
(Though it ain’t only “Joltin’” who’s moultin’ away.)
Obsolete Mrs. Robinson. God bless you, please!
(Have you heard? She’s interred with an ST Disease.)
Say “hello!” to Mrs. Simpson, also known as Marge.
With cyan’d locks and gravel’d vox, her sway at Fox is large.
She rules her Reich in Springfield like some latter-day La Farge.
She’s Homer’s gal-cum-femme-fatale – and totally in charge.
Meet Mrs. Thatcher, Iron Girl,
whose bouff’s aloof from errant curl.
Brave ‘80s blokes gave Meg a whirl.
By ’90, folks were mopping hurl.
Meet Mrs. Upson (her Christian name’s Doris)
a now-extinct species of genus Upsaurus
who loathes Auntie Mame. Her encephalon’s porous.
Her husband’s called Claude. He approximates Horus.
Her daughter, Miss Glory, was born under Taurus.
She’s anti-Semitic, occasioning tsoris.
(This verse in complete. What’s required for its chorus?
An index of rhymes and a larger thesaurus.)
Meet Mrs. Van Winkle, whose ex-husband, Rip,
deeply vexed with her kvetching, bequeaths her the slip.
It’s implied Dame Van died. (Irving doesn’t know zip.)
So: who’s crewing that New Bedford factory ship?
Mrs. Warren’s profession? None older’s around.
Though not cricket, this ticket gets gals off the ground.
Mrs. W’s daughter, than Mother less wild,
turns out thank- (-ful and -less): she’s Shaw’s cutting-edge child.
Meet Mrs. X (surname suppressed).
Her life’s complex, as you’ll have guessed.
She’d Nanny vex and prove a pest.
(We’ve Malcolm Little not addressed.)
Mrs. Yukimura, not unlike some last Mohican,
is an ages-old Kitsune keeping house in Hills of Beacon.
She’s of Japanese descent -- no, she is not some Puerto Rican.
(You’re so close to full disclosure; now is not the time to weaken.)
To feel “the full catastrophe”
fulfilled, weds A his Mrs. Z.
Roars Zorba: “House and kids and wife:
That’s full catastrophe!” (Ah: life!)
