A's for Austed Alfrin, Poet Laureate of Phreex.
About him, in John Dough and Chick the Cherub, Frank Baum speaks.
With bandag’d eye, with halting gait, with pinch’d ‘n’ pallid cheeks,
he lisps his lim'rick'd "sonnets" as he Kinglet's sanctions seeks.
"The Goddess of Wisdom felt sad;
And when asked why she whimper’d so bad,
Said: 'There's one, it is true,
Who knows more than I do --
And the Kinglet of Phreex is the lad!"
Solyman Brown? “Sandy” Burgess? Bryony Butters? By no means!
B's for Roy V. ("Poetaster") Bensinger. One learns
from Rosalind and Cary (Hildy Johnson, Walter Burns)
how Bensinger (ne Baenziger) for acclamation yearns.
(His desk provides a plot twist 'round which His Girl Friday turns):
"...(A)nd all is well, outside his cell
But in his heart he hears
The hangman calling, and the gallows falling,
And his white-haired mother's tears --..."
Colley Cibber? Margaret Cavendish? Johnnie Cochran? Certainly not!
C is for Corday. Claudette Colbert portrays this
poet
named Edwina in a film with Jimmy Stewart, don’t
you know. Itstars all Seven Deadly Sins – yes, even Sloth (though they don’t show it).
‘Wina’s verse (though we’ve heard worse) we must allow, at best, inchoate.
The night will be
here when we are gone,
Though we are gone, the stars will
be here,
And other throats
will sing in the dawn,
It's a wonderful
world, my dear.
C's also for Christopher Chubb, so-so bard
who creates Bob McCorkle (nor were it that hard).
Inexplicably, Bob's work trumps Chubb's, it turns out.
(Read My Life as a Fake: see how 'tall comes about.)
"Swamps, marshes, borrow-pits and other
Areas of stagnant water serve
As breeding grounds..."
"...I have been bitter with you, my brother,
Remembering that saying of Lenin when the shadow
Was already on his face:
'The emotions are not skilled workers...'"...
Star Trek’s Data? Derek Dufton? Longfellow Deeds? Definitely no!
D is for Dovetonsils -- given name, Percy --
a Jersey-born lush pushing televised verse, he.
His death -- prematurely -- proved, surely, a mercy.
Steer clear of this cheeky cigar-smoking Circe.
"Sometimes I wish I were a dog:
A boxer or a cocker spaniel
Or, perhaps, a German Spitz --
Or maybe a chihuahua named Manual."
Laurence Eusden? Nothin' doin'!
E's for that Hangman call’d Elliot
who's portray’d by the thespian Miles
who performs in a picture call’d Kind Hearts and Coronets,
film’d in the
He polishes verse which he reads the condemn’d,
couch'd in formats, the which he compiles
for each dies irae. (Is it unfair to say
he's distraught with the thought of mistrials?)
...Your Grace, reflect.
While yet of
mortal breath some span,
however short, is left to thee...
how brief the total span
twixt birth and death...
how long thy coming
tenure of eternity.
Your Grace, prepare... --"
James Franco? Richard Flecknoe? Nope!
F is for Foozy, Oop's mate.
His iambic tetram’ters? Third rate.
Where these two the fat chew, tete-a-tete,
sleeping doggerel’s lying in wait.
"Really, Oop? What can I say?
Your kindness blows me clean away!
I'll read that book with lightning speed,
so you can have it back to read..."
(Dey often comes in groups o’ twos, deese
poor pathetic po’ms o' Foozy’s).
"To spread your net
in the broadest way
is the very best bet
I always say."
Edgar Guest? Grunthos the Flatulent? Gahagan the Rhyming Cop? Never!
G is for Emmeline Grangerford,
Mark Twain's send-up of Julia Moore.
She penn’d doggerel rhymes,
then succumb’d (for her crimes?):
poor Emm lived some short ten years 'n' four.
"...No whooping-cough did rack his frame.
Nor measles drear, with spots;
Not these impaired the sacred name
Of Stephen Dowling Bots.
Despised love struck not with woe
That head of curly knots.
Nor stomach troubles laid him low,
Young Stephen Dowling Bots..."
John, Lord Hervey? Hardly!
H is for Orrin (whose surname is Hatch).
Orrin's "Eight Days of Hanukkah" (b'low note a snatch).
"What a Wonderful World" for affords it no match.
(Nor's the Beehive State's GOP senator Satch.)
"Hanukkah
Oh Hanukkah
The festival of light
In Jerusalem
The oil burned bright
They lit the menorah
In that holy place
What a miracle
To last eight days..."
I's for Ice man – pseudonym.
There's Ice-T; also Iceberg Slim.
(Ice Cube, as well -- remember him?)
Each limns hymns dim…simplistic…grim.
"A child was born in the East one day
Moved to the West coast after his parents passed away
Never understood his fascination with rhymes or beats
In poetry he was considered elite
Became a young gangster in the streets of L.A.
Lost connections with his true roots far away
But no matter the job or crime
He never lost his hardcore obsession to rhyme...
Jeltz? Jesse Jackson? Paula Nancy Millstone Jennings? No way, Jose!
J is for Paul Neil Milne Johnstone's depiction,
not Paul Neil Milne Johnstone: the first's but a fiction --
(Inventor? Doug Adams.) -- one leading to friction,
a dustup not due to The Hitchhiker's diction.
"The dead swans lay in the stagnant pool.
They lay. They rotted. They turned
Around occasionally.
Bits of flesh dropped off them from
Time to time. And sank into the pool's mire.
They also smelt a great deal.
Dimitry Khvostov? Joe Kitchell? Carlos K Krinklebein? Negative!
K is for Kilmer – kin christen’d him Joyce.
He intoned in a vapid-as-dishwater voice.
Philolexians, fin'lly, were left with no choice
but to host The Bad Poetry Contest. Rejoice!
"I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree...
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
L is for Luna. Her friends feel she's deep. Her
deplorable poesy pops up in "Sleeper."
The "butterfly/larva" snafu seems to creep her,
as Woody cracks wise about sex and The Reaper.
"A little boy caught a butterfly
and said to himself,
'I must try to understand
my life and help others,
not just mothers and fathers,
but friends, strangers too,
with eyes of blue and lips
full red and round.'
But the butterfly
didn't make a sound...
for he had turned
into a caterpillar,
by and by."
Julia Moore? James McIntyre (the cheese Poet)? Erin Malley? No dice!
Will (William Topaz McGonagall)
crowns my prosopographical chronicle.
Was his "Tay Bridge Disaster" ironical?
(Was the noggin concoctin’ it conical?)
"...Oh! Ill-fated bridge of the silv'ry Tay.
I now must conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your central girders would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side with buttresses
At least many sensible men confesses,
For the stronger we our houses do build,
The less chance we have of being killed."
("VIPs N through Z" is a work in progress: watch this space.)
