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 queer'd,
Pier, as fear'd, engineer'd it (a shear of his beard).
Dierdre sneer'd as the austere Pier – shear'd – reappear'd.
Cheerless Kier, leering, jeer'd, “Dear, dear: seriously weird!”
C’s for the child I’d misfiled under ‘mild’
whom unreconciled psychics reviled as beguiled.
“For some while, Pyle’d not smiled,” sigh'd Childe Harold de Wylde
(Since Pyle died, Childe’s decided, “Pyle’s piles had been filed!”)
D’s for one drown'd whom a flounderman’s hound
found – crown'd brown, run aground -- in Quowtown’s renown'd 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 (christen'd Burl) whom rur’al churl Cyr’l
found curl'd up in church tarted up like “Merle’s Girl.”
Surly Burl’s curls, unfurl'd, skirl'd 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 –tann'd – Rand scann'd from the grandstand,
commanding the handbag with nine-hundred grand.
That damn dandy ha’n’t plann'd 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 lipp'd 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 jamm'd our li’l femme – Grammy Graham’s wee lamb.
Pam got flatten'd – ker-blam! – lying cramm'd 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 Klohdz gets His Highness to sing...?
L’s for the leg which the pregnant nun Meg
mused she’d used to seduce Reggie Weggman, the 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” loom'd, 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 clipp'd mezzotints from Flint’s Septuagints.
Yet this dish evinced hints: a mint set of his prints.
(Plus – don’t wince! – Vince has since fail'd to floss or to rinse.)
R’s for the rain Kane claims o’erflow'd 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 fein'd, 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,
dipp'd in thinn'd carotene, in their victims thin shins.
U’s for the urn Verne, Sir Ernest’s nurse, learn'd
could depart and return when Verne twirl'd Miss Hearn’s fern.
There the taciturn Dern hid the undiscern'd quern
he’d soon turn on the burn'd 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 wee 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, stew'd two shrews, abused caribous, too,
chew'd out kangaroos, cockatoos. Killer bees...? Few!
But those few Hugh’s confused crew let loose. In the loo!
