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.