Weather Report: A Constrained Nonsense Alphabet in Rhyme

A's for the Aurorae. Let’s tour 

two. The first's Australis, whose prune 

plumes illumine views down south. 
The second’s Borealis –
its heightened lights ignite night's blight
in thermospheres up north.
Bipolar pairs!* (My word! No third Aurora...? 
Lord! No fourth...?)

 

     * One manuscript featuring this verse shows
"dyed polar bears" here. 

B be for the Belt of Venus:
atmos- [species] -pheric [genus].

Pinkish tints mint hints of "she"-ness. 
Yellowness...? Oh, yes! (Less greenness.)
Also horizontal leanness.
(Watch it, weather wonk! You've seen us 
eye such skies: obscene's your meanness --
rum attempts to come between us. 
Cease! Desist, you cyst, you...penis!
(Finis! Amen! Amen! Finis!)) 

C's for the Chinook, 
the "wayward wind"* which waxes warm

whene'er it's blowing true to form –
or so pronounces Nixon's book. 
Dick's tome's the tell-all Tricky took
from off a freshman in his dorm
(although such nicking’s not Dick's norm:
swears Milhous, "I am not a crook...").

 

     * A "restless wind" as well, and one truly "born
to wander -- or so insists songbird and amateur
meteorologist Gogi Grant, who's self-named "next
of kin" to this Top-Forty weather phenomenon.

D's for the Derechos,
winds whose squalls give sheiks the shakes. 

Like diesel trains -- big trains, not HOs – 
they tow wind shears in their wakes. 
As Holden C.* to run away chose, 
Waco's folks* do all it takes
to pull up stakes: "Release dose brakes!
Then scoot like hell, for heaven's sakes!"

 

     * Young Caulfield in J. D., Salinger's The
Catcher in the Rye

     * Though located several miles east of the
Texas river and the town sharing this name,
citizens of Waco know from bitter experience 
of other sorts that they can't be too careful.

E's for Elephanta,
winds one can't connect with Cannes, 

with Santa Ana nor Atlanta,
Timbuktu nor Kazakhstan,
but can with India, where Fanta's
set aside the Gold Spot bran.'*
(What damage lesser breezes can't accomplish,
elephantas can.)

     * Coca-Cola -- as a corporate elephanta 
might -- blew into India, bought up India's Gold 
Spot soda, then discontinued the brand in order 
to make room for its own Fanta beverage. 
Somewhat ironically, Gold Spot came not in 
cans but in bottles.

F's for Firn, some sort of snow.
('Tis not spelt 'fern' -- that much we know.) 

All schoolboys learn how Eskimo,
as pairs adjourn from Noolaaghe Doh,*
shall, one with quern 'n' one with hoe,
contrive to churn each glacier so,
to turn such firn as lurks below.
(Shall both re-turn...? I won’t say "no.")

 

     * Or Nulato, a small town in Alaska's 
Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area with a
population, in 2000, of 336 souls. 

G is for Graupel, a rime
hail'd as "small hail" some most of the time.

Graupel grows in a super-cool'd clime 
and makes snow moguls so-o-o hard to climb.
(Note the punning...? The internal* rhyme...?
I consider this hymn quite sublime.
To my readers who don't, I say, "I'm
quite sure puns fit this victimless crime.")

 

     * Some early manuscripts show 'infernal' 
here. 

H...? The H is for Haboob,
whose dusts, of sepia and ruby,

roil and boil -- a surfer's tube! -- 
to buffet both big-brain'd and boobie.
Whether you an Okie Reub-
en or some Rubik's-Cubein' Sioux be,
blows (haboobs) do bruise your pubes: 
they fell both false and "-lievers" ("true be-").

I's for Injun Summer,
when thermometers again 
achieve their August levels: bummer...

'cuz such warmin' waxes. When...?  
When we've already weathered frosts. 
Such frickin' flux! 'Tis uncontrolled.
Forget McCutcheon*: with our luck 'n' all,
we'll catch our death o' cold.
Great-grandad, later, longed for reprints --
long and loud did Grampie scold.
The Tribune's claim...? "The damn thing's incorrect...
though placed below the fold."
Nostalgi'ns 'cross the USA, when 

they are subsequently polled,
extoll: "We love John's piece to pieces."
But, although the Trib's cajol'd, 
'tis all for naught. (In time the paper is, 
eventually, sold.)
Now John's cartoon dwells on the web
(and my lampoon sprouts mould).

     * The Chicago Tribune cartoonist John 
McCutcheon's popular illustrated narrative 
appeared in 1907 and again each Autumn 
for the next 80 years -- until continuing 
to do so was pronounced politically incorrect.

J's for the Jet Streams.
Don't fret: they're not wet dreams.

Think fast! [Blink!] They've passed --
like no biker yet met. Seems
they've, lest we forget, 
quite a character set. 
Loom jets lofty? You bet!
Like my hue'd minaret,
or your blue'd clarinet.
Or her rude cigarette,
or his nude statuette:
whatall's seen's what you get!
[Please attend how I sweat! 
Help me end this vignette!
I'd be so-o-o-o-o in your debt.
(Phone the boys with the net!)]

K's for Kat- (they howl down mountains,
heaps 'n' hills) -abatic Winds. 

Yes. Kat- (and like Jill's Hill, at bottom,
somethin' spills) -abatic Winds. 
But such winds won't perform well every time:
they're most erratic ones.
What are, then, Katabatics most like...? 
Semiautomatic guns!)

L is for Levanters,
winds which rock around Gibraltar.*

Seems their keening's kin to cantors' kvell -- 
still, seldom do they falter.
Were Levanters Corybants, sir, 
Keenan Wynn** would haunt their altar. 
But as years pass, fears grow scanter, 
and his scorn Wynn's sworn to alter.

     * Pictured in the visual often found 
accompanying the verse, the famous Gibraltar 
macaque.

     ** Pictured in the visual often found 
accompanying the verse, the famous actor 
Keenan Wynn.

M is for the Monsoon wind, 

one monsterous affair.

In this, our "mondo di monsoon" -- mon Dieu!

We've monsoons everywhere.

Out in Mongolia, Montana,
Montenegro monsoons blow:
were she in Mon*, they'd nick the frickin' frock
off Marilyn Monroe.*

 

     * An ancient kingdom in Burma and now 
an administrative division of Myanmar. 

     ** As per Marilyn's iconic turn in the film 
"The Seven-Year Itch."

N's for Noctilucent Clouds.

They're high.* They're dry.** Their guise ain't dowdy.
Noctilucents shine by night,
when, otherwise, the sky's not cloudy.

Ties have they to climate change...?
Guys (Yung et al.***) have so avow'd. He
leads the loud and rowdy crowd
who, framing "nocts," exclaims, "Boy howdy!"

 

     * Noctilucents are the highest cloud formation on 
the planet. 

     ** Noctilucents are non-precipitive clouds. 

     *** I.e., Tracey K. Tromp, Run-Lie Shia, Mark 
Allen, John M. Eiler and Y. L. Yung in a paper 
published in the June, 2003 issue of Science 
Magazine. (Whether all five are actually guys 
cannot be determined through web references 
alone.) 

     **** The word partially appearing above, 
considered by some to be 'magazine,' is more 
likely to be 'a-gazin.'

O's for Oobleck, that climatological goo
sent by Seuss -- Doctor Seuss (that's Ted 
Geisel to you),
to Bartholomew Cubbins, with mucho ado, 
to help wring from Bart's king an "I'm sorry." 
('T'sall true!)

The letter P's for Palouser,

pronounced, friends fancy, "pal-uh-SAIRE."

I Googled it and found it there:
they said, "pronounce it 'PAL-uh-sair.'"
That nailed it not. A lot they care. 
(One killed my cow: that wasn't fair...
unless it was that solar flare.)
At base, they're but vast blasts of air
which fuss -- and muss not jus' your hair.

Q's for Quasi-stationary
Front, the front that tends to tarry.

Squattin' on an air-mass barri-
er, its temps tend not to vary --
out at sea where floats your ferry;
inland, o'er your western prairie.
(QSFs, while not too scary,
are, in fact, liquescent...very!)

R's for Rainin' Cats 'n' Dogs.
It pours! It sogs! No 'pitter pats.'

Our streets aren't clogg'd with fungo bats
but fat -- nine meter! -- cedar logs.
It floods our flats: they're cranb'rry bogs!
For togs, wear Wellies: shed those spats.
(Some call it 'non-non-aqueous': 
we've not the foggiest what that's.)

S is for St. Elmo's Fire's
fluorescent blue or purpl'y glow. Be

Pequod's mate, one Starbuck, spotting 
plasma'd gas in Melvelle's Moby
Dick? Yes, as does Shakespeare's Ari-
el, who's charg'd by Prospero
to stir the tempest in that drama
called The Tempest, don'cha know.

T's for your Tsunami -- 
same as stands for Tidal Wave.

"They follow earthquakes," swann'd our swami,
"and the harm they do be grave.
Were one to loom, alert your Mommie.
She shall shout: 'Stand still; be brave!'"
(One did; Sri collar'd his salami
and hightail'd it for his cave.)

U's for your Uncinus --
cloud de la crook –

thusly call'd, ala Latin,
to designate 'hook.'
They're (God knows!) spare as nose hairs
on Alaistair Cooke,
and de trop in the troposphere,
realm o' the rook.
Seen in pairs, they're term'd 'mares' tails' --
a phrase best forsook --
and adhere to the cirrus,
my dears: take a look!
What precip they let rip 
most elect not to brook.
(What's much worse...? Like this verse, 
they're terse gobbledygook.)

V's for your Virga,
which hails from on high,

not as hail but as ice crystals.
Down, down they fly,
and then, all of a sudden,
they sublimate. Why...?
Because air pressure's hot.
(Such occurs where it's dry.)
She who's witness'd, come sunset, 
a Virga-gilt sky
sighs as salmon-soak'd streamershine
lights up her eye.
(NASA's Phoenix saw Virga
on Mars in July
of '08, when their JPL
lander dropp'd by.) 

"W's for Williwaw. It's katabatic, cold 'n' raw – 

one wint'ry blast best held in awe.
'Twill freeze your knees...with tooth 'n' claw.
When 'waw's be due, one'd best withdraw:
no move may prove one's tragic flaw.
Don't hem! Don't haw! Don't set your jaw:
you'll ne'er play 'Willie' to a draw..."
With this -- and more -- I caution'd Shaw
as sat we down to tailgate slaw.
"Haw-haw-dee-haw, thou smug McGraw:
no way you're layin' down the law.
Your caveat sticks in my craw.
You're nowt if not petit bourgeoise.
P-s-s-s-…shaw," said Shaw with gruff guffaw.
Then, chaw in jaw, he cough'd: "Haw-haw!"
When last I saw G. Bernard Shaw, 
'twas as he pitch'd through roll and yaw.
Then, lookin' like a man o' straw,
he wafted high...and wav'd his paw:
"Bid 'sayonara' to my Maw 
and 'hasta pronto' to my squaw!"
(I trust this ain't Shaw's last hurrah: 
We'll for'ge for George when dawns the thaw.)

X...? 'Tis not for Hunger Moon, 
who fails to fill my empty spoon; 

nor X be not for Lenten Moon, 
who hails my fasting from the prune. 

X...? 'Tis not for Planting Moon, 
who warns, "Your weeds remain unhewn"; 

nor X is not for Flower Moon, 
whose thorns en rose effuse come June.

X...? 'Tis not for Thunder Moon, 
who stalks the monsterous monsoon; 

nor X is not for Green Corn Moon, 
whose candlepow'r can't shine too soon. 

X...? 'Tis not for Harvest Moon, 
of whom ersatz Bing Crosbys croon; 

nor X is not for Hunter's Moon, 
whose glowin's known to Daniel Boone.

X...? 'Tis not for Beaver Moon 
(nor Moon Baboon, nor Moon Racoon); 

Nor X be not for Long Night Moon, 
whose beams, it seems, are seen at noon.

X...? 'Tis not for Bony Moon, 
who proves, to Cherokees, a boon, 

Nor X be not for Barley Moon, 
who figures in the wiccan's rune.

X...? 'Tis not for Mourning Moon, 
who rises of an afternoon (!); 

Nor X be not for Goodnight Moon 
(though now I'm proving picayune).

X...? Might be for Yellow Moon, 
but 'Yellow' boasts no 'X,' you loon. 

So...let X be for Xanthin Moon: 
'tis yellow-like... (How opportune!)

Y's for Yellow Snow... 
(it isn't what you think...). 

Three kinds of yellow snow are seen – 
or so most snow men think... 

The first is air pollution 
(planet Earth is on the brink)... 

Another...? Pollen turns snow gold, 
but no: it doesn't stink... 

The third is sand; sand even turns snow black...
or brown...or pink...! 

(The yellow snow kids' peepees sow 
you'd not want near your rink.)

The last letter's Z. 
It's for Zephyr...

a puff mild, loved by child, 
lamb and heifer... 

(Its winds...? Hush'd, though those "shush!"'d 
grow no deafer...)

Fave of "-Titi." -- in Crete, 
known as "Nefer-"!