Comic/Novel: A Worladdo* in Sixteen Rundles

          *Word Ladder Doggerel

     Rundle the First 

Who kvells o'er best-sellers deem'd humorous...? 

Who's fond of a novelty comic...?

(Not plays on words, lately so numerous,
nor volumes Islamic or psalmic.)

     Rundle the Second 

To friends I'm commending this verse
flaunting twain -- spheres urbane and bucolic.
'Tis ironic: laconic yet terse...
a frolic which kindles no colic.

     Rundle the Third 

Do they lure, stanzas lurid, acidic -- 

hydrochloric, sulfuric or folic...? 

Or's your palate for po'sy bromidic...?

Better stick with the soapy and olic.

     Rundle the Fourth 

If, however, you're fond of the Don*

and the verse gracing Shakespeare's First Folio,

here's, at last, lines to cast eyes upon

as you channel your anti-Malvolio.

     *Quixote not Drumpf

     Rundle the Fifth 

Did, in '21, Franklin catch polio

as he trumpeted lim'ricks by Lear...?

Nonsense! Franklin engaged in el coleo

in the streets of Caracas that year.

     Rundle the Sixth 

Salmonella in Delano's pollo

doubtless help'd provoke paralyzed legs.

(In the end, he luck'd out: else that boyo

might have dragg'd out his days on two pegs.)

     Rundle the Seventh 

Survey takers and like-minded souls

gath'ring market research for a living

bring to light the results of their polls:

most tragedies read unforgiving.

     Rundle the Eighth* 

Where you dwell may be villa or veldt

and your home pasture, parkland or polis;

this result's ever noted and felt:

tragic tomes leave us homeless and goalless!

      *Research has determined that this eighth 

        rundle, extraneous to the poem's form, 

        must be an insertion made by a hand or 

        hands differing from that or those which 

        composed the original worladdo.

     Rundle the Ninth 

Academics accessing the Arctic,

those who haunt one or both of the poles,

fin'lly find such a sojourn cathartic

if and when they steer clear of the holes.

     Rundle the Tenth 

Might your socks rate a darn using angora yarn...?
Might your boots require bolst'ring of soles...?
Yes, when cleansing a barn in Champigny-sur-Marne

or if hauling, to Newcastle, coals.

     Rundle the Eleventh

Trust me, Reader, for I am in sales.

I know all which, in reading, is best:

sailors' tales of substantial white whales

and how cowpokes 'n' -babes won the West.

     Rundle the Twelfth

Says God to whoe'er misbehaves,

"Amen, amen, eh...? Jesus saves!

And how! Be thou tycoons or slaves...

and He does so from cradles to graves."

     Rundle the Thirteenth

Try the Traveling Dzhokhar Tsamaeves

& Xiao Dan Bo Ming Tao Combined Shows!

Ev'ry critic save one's printing raves.

(Their new off'ring's a hit, d'you suppose...?)

     Rundle the Fourteenth

 

With lyrics by Comden and Green

and a prize-winning score by Ravel,

their new staging of "Bathing Machine"

is performing, wherever play'd, well.

     Rundle the Fifteenth 

Since view'd contemplating his navel,

poor William of Orange has died.

He's interr'd in the forest primaeval

in his zest-coated marmalade hide.

 

    

     Rundle the Last

Dost thou dwell in some down-county seat,

in a hole-in-the-wall or a hovel...?

I care not if you live on the street:

you can't not love a good comic novel!