A Dozen Alternate Takes in Rhyme...

     ...on Puccini & Browning, Evangelist Mark & Swift

 

Pinkerton's hit with paternity suit;

pest-control expert misplaces his flute.

Pregnant young Jewess books Bethlehem inn...

and Lem won't expound on the places he's been.

     ...on Shakespeare & Hart, Dostoyevsky & Hart again

 

"Let bygones be bygones," Othello avers;

she does go to Harlem in jewelry and furs.

F. Karamazov sires nothing but girls...

and she does enjoy crap games with barons and earls.

     ...on Raymond & Khayyam, Trendle/Striker & Austin

 

Emperor Ming Mongo's throne cedes to Flash;

tentmaker Omar writes, "Don't take the cash." 

Tonto rides Silver; the Ranger rides Scout...

and Elizabeth Bennett has fin'lly come out.

 

     ...on Proust & Dickens, Alighieri & Milton

 

"What is that smell...?" asks Marcel -- "I forget";

the children of Dorrit pay off Daddy's debt.

Dante can't find his way out of the wood...

and Lucifer backtracks, embracing the good.

     ...on Melville & de Troyes, Seuss & Seurat

 

Ahab retires after killing the whale;

Lancelot pauses his search for the Grail.
"Does anyone still wear a hat...?" asks the Cat...

and Sundays, gendarmes close the Ile de Grande Jatte. 

      ...on Plato & Stow, Baum & Rabelais

Greek sage thinks truth's best observed from a cave;

Robin Hood, yeoman, gets hung as a knave.

Twister kills Kansas girl shelt'ring at home...

and Pantagruel's merely a feeble French gnome.

     ...on Burton & Mother Goose, Scott et al. & Moore

Sheherazade runs short of tales to relate;

Jack Spratt has put on a great deal of weight.

Ginger and Fred dance to waltzes by Strauss...

and creatures are stirring -- yes, even a mouse!

     ...on Hemingway & Mother Goose, Genesis & Ende

 

Elderly angler lands prize-winning fish;

the spoon can't -- or won't -- run away with the dish.
Abel and Cain disagree but part friends...
and that story we thought never-ending...? It ends.

     ...on Bulwer-Lytton & Genesis, Milne & McCarthy/Buchman

 

Weather that night...? Neither stormy nor dark;

sun comes out -- Noah scraps plans for an ark.

Pooh tutors Piglet on gravity waves...

and, though urged to go wild, Theodora behaves.

     ...on Mankiewicz & Evangelist John, Thurber & the OT

 

Charles Foster Kane runs for POTUS -- and wins;

Jesus refuses to die for your sins.

Wallflower Mitty acknowledges truth...

and Boaz won't wed with the Moabite Ruth.

     ...on Borges & Carroll, Eliot/Conrad and Shakespeare

Funes gets Alzheimer's, moves to a home;

there aren't any raths -- leastwise none you'd call 'mome.'

Tom misquotes Joe: "Mistah Kurtz -- he ain't dead"...

and Will wills his widow his second-worst bed.

     ...on Genesis & HIstory.com, Shakespeare & Dickens

Adam tells Eve, "Not now, Darling -- I'm full";

George Armstrong Custer defeats Sitting Bull.

Macbeth runs away from that scrap with McDuff...

and Scrooge won't become a Noël-loving fluff.