Wolaly One > Ten: A Jump Rope Rhyme (Unpub)

     There's always more than one way to get there. 

One's but one. One stands alone.
Two's an ore. At heart, it's stone.
Three's an ort, a scrap of meat.
Four's an oat, the grain I eat. 
Five...? Five sat -- a moment's rest
Six...? "The sun set in the west." 
Seven -- see...? They're seven seas. 
Eight's a fee. Just pay it, please! 
Nine's a fen. It's land...? All wet.
Ten's a ten. The best...? You bet!

Canonagrams or Books They Might Have Written (Unpub)

Jane Austin: Injun At Sea
Samuel Beckett: Let 'Em Back...? Es tu...?
Joseph Conrad: Corpse on Hadj
Don DeLillo: No Deli, Doll!
Ralph Waldo Emerson: Howl, Demon! Rape, Pals! 
William Faulkner: Lawn Milk...? Failure!
Graham Greene: Her Garage, Men!
Ernest Hemingway: He's Wearing My Net!
Eugene Ionesco: No, No... I Cue Geese!
Henry James: My Jeans; Her _______
Rudyard Kipling: I Play'd Kurd "Ring"
C. S. Lewis: Swel! (Sic)
Philip Larkin: Pink Hair Pill
Herman Melville: Leave Mr. M____ In Hell!
Vladimir Nabokov: Mr. A, Invalid (Book V)
Eugene O’Neill: I (Né Lee) Lounge
Harold Pinter: In Her Old Part
Quintilian: I Quilt, Nina
Salman Rushdie: Sure, Man: Al's Hid![JH1] 
William Shakespeare: I'll Share a Peek, Swami!
Mark Twain: Mink at War!
Sigrid Undset: I Git ‘Undress’d’
Jules Verne: “Le Jeu” (vers N)
Virginia Woolf: Living for Iowa
Xenephon: "Open Hen 'X'!”
William Butler Yeats: Yes, I Will, Ma...but Later!
Emile Zola: I'm Loleeza
 

---

 [JH1]

Constrained Celebrity: An Alphabet (in progress)

"Absolute zero's one get-go,* albeit a bleak..."  

specs Alexis,** who's married with children and swears, "Yeah, I’m Greek.”   

     * Possibly the so-called Great Get-Go, 

often confused with the Big Bang.
     ** Zorba (AZ)
 
"Be yourself! (HO* whom else would you be…?" asks (rhetoric'lly) Boris.**  

"To be anyone else might cause Mother*** some serious tsoris."

     * Russian Cyrillics for 'but' and pronounced
(roughly) 'noh.'
     * Yeltsin (BY)
     *** Mother Russia, of course.
 
"Contemn xenophobes! Contemn..." Rhumba King Cugat* repeats.  

(Just as he would be treated, each stranger this vir bonus** treats.)  

     * Xavier (CX (reverso))
     ** What the good man does is always right –
or so (someplace) suggest the Brothers Grimm.
 
"Do without! Pledge thy pounds to the poor," warbles Dionne* (a song bird),  

though 'tis Bacharach (Burt) who will best teach her right word from wrong word.

     * Warwick (DW)  
 
"’Every valley exalted shall be; every rough place made plain...’:   

I would dance thee that text," Edward* vows, "but in Balanchine vein."

     * Villella (EV)  
 
"I’m fed up! UFOs, URLs, UXBs..." fumes our Felix.*

"In the end, all they yield is some abecedarial helix."

     * Unger (FU) 
 
"Gin and tonic plus juice of one lime: pour the lot over ice..." 

prescribes Gene.* "Good advice," echoes Gene.** "To: innocuous vice!" 

     * Tierney (GT) 
     ** Tunney (GT)
 
"He v she…? The distinction's ambiguous," challenges Holly.* 

So (s)he's Shlomo. Still, what's in a name…? 'So long, Sol; hello, Dolly.'

     * Sweet (HS) 
 
"I, Robot, rest my case," in tones Rumpolean

roars Irene.* "I'd rap it, were I Rock 'n' Rollean."

     * Ryan (IR) 
 
"John Quincey ain't the seventh Chief Exec," corrects Jose.*

"He's sixth, post James Monroe…but what the heck!" (More: what the 

hey!!)
     * Quintero (JQ) 
 
"Key personnel…? Kevin…? Paul…? Rajon…? Ray…?" Kendrick* wonders.

Then Perk's traded, which trade shall yet prove one of Bean Town's big blunders. 

     * Perkins (KP)
 
Leigh/Olivier,* Lunt/Fontaine. Which duo's dropp’d from the list

of great thespian pairs…? Jolie/Pitt…? LOL! THEY'D be miss'd…?

     * (LO) 
 
"Mach'avellian, not to say cynical: 'twas just her way..." 

muses Mike,* as he pegs one-time partner, the late Elaine May.

     * Nichols (MN) 
 
"Not much!" mutters Norman,* when asked if he liked married life. 

 "Good when naked, but less good when dead: much depends on the wife."

     * Mailer (NM) 
 
Ozymandias: "Look on my burg, Mr. Big, and despair!"

(Or Orlando*: "Give ear to my music...or not: I don't care.") 

     * Lasso (OL)
 
[PK: Percy Kilbride]
[QJ: Quincy Jones]
[RI: Robert Ingersoll]
[SH: Sam Houston]
[TG: Theodor Geisel]
[UF: Ugo Foscolo]                    
[VE: V. Emmanuel]
[WD: W. Demarest]
[XC: Claudio Ximenes (reverso)]                  
[YB: Yul Brynner or Yogi Berra]
[ZA: Zufer Avdija (NBA power forward 

and father of current Wizards player 

Deni Avdija]

Rat Dance: Chemical Paint Aerosol Sprayed Through Paper Stencil Onto Painted Salvaged Lumber For Miniature Decorated Baltimore Salt Box

7" x 3 1/4"

A Quintet Of 'Oscar Wilde' Anagrams

     Oscar Wilde

Oscar party games would play.
“Pick any card, sir,” Oscar'd say,
devoid of all frivolity.
“On each be writ the quality
Dame Destiny ascribes to you.
Scoff not, my friend. Her cards speak true."
(Young Aubrey Beardsley drew ‘precocial.’
Ross drew ‘loyal.’ Wilde 

     drew ‘social.’)

     Oscar Wilde 

Says O, "I'm mad for skinny lads.

'Mongst linguists, lean's oft barr'd:

wi' Chomsky's girth's pack'd meager mirth,

as is 

     wi' Eco's lard."

     Oscar Wilde

O to Doctor Fauci: "Doc, could I have overheard

your asking Ronny Jackson if with Debra he's conferr'd

to determine posilutely if immunity's gone herd...?

(And if, within Drumpf's Oval bin, Don asks, 

     'Is 'cel' a word...?')...?"

      Oscar Wilde
"Proof Olympus hugs spinoffs 
of Parkinson's law...? 

Search no further," shrugs Oscar, "than 
      Io's red claw."

     Oscar Wilde

O's green cuisine 

commands the prize.

He's Edna Lewis, 

     col'ard-wise.

Another 'Oscar Wilde' Anagram

      Oscar Wilde 
Wilde courted the Muses. ('Tis said
Oscar even took Thalia to bed.)
Euterpe was pleased. Terpsichore...? Teased.
But Erato and 
     Clio saw red.

Anagrams Around "The Railway Children" (Unpub)

     E. Nesbit:
With footballer Billy a surname she shares.
But Bill: he ain't E., though -- agree…?
As those Nesbits do, Cummingses name-share as well.
('Tis bene:
     B.* isn’t ee.)

    * The actor (that's Bob aka Robert) must never 

be confused with the famous lower-case-initialed 

poet lest cultural chaos ensue -- agree...?

Crossbreeds: a Halfabet

The Allimony   The Babbit   The Cassowole   The Dingoebary   The Efterveasant
The Fleabertyjivet   The Gob'legook   The Hedgemone   The Inchubator

The Jack'l-a-box   The Kahuna   The Lampreydusa   The Mackaroon   

The Nar-do-welle   The Orang-jul'yess   The Pandamonium

The Qualifying Rhound   The Ringmarole   The Sardsporilla   The Thigmajig

The Undiewear   The Voleswagon   The Whippoorsnaptor   The Xylophrone

The Yakeedoodle   The Zoobeeyak 

First...Then...: An Alfabot

At first a little 

then alot 

upon his wienie, 

on his Brät.
At first avec- 

then sans-culotte. 

At first she can 

then she cannot 

treat MASD -- 

or dry rot –
in Binghamton 

or Endicott.

What flowers first 

in a flower pot 

may migrate 

to a garden spot

where mornings chilly 

soon grow hot.

Amin an Einstein...? 

No he's not. 

But nor's he 

not an Idi-ot.

At first Bahama 

then Grande Jatte. 

At first taekwond- 

but then karat-. 

At first unsnarl'd 

then in a knot.

At first Methus'lah; 

later Lot.

At first de Sade 

but then Marat. 

(a work in progress)

Fixin's Bar

Richard Armour's Condiments

Shake and shake the catsup bottle. 
None will come and then a lot'll.
Nothing attracts the mustard from wieners
as much as the slacks just back from the cleaners.

Uly's Poe's Tack-On Demented

In Lotus Land dwell androids, bots
whose frames are reclaimed chamber pots.
Allow'd is one to gun the throttle...?
Not if one's an axolotl.

OuLiPo's Ten: An Open Letter To Ou-Know-Who From Ulysses Poe

     Does anyone have an inkling as to what might 

result from distilling the essences of OuLiPo's 

instigators into anagrams of their names placed 

on the rears of doggerel distichs? Nonsense sensai 

Ulysses Poe imagines he does.

To: tou, ununruly OuLiPo!

Hommage à you, from Uly Poe.

     Noël Arnaud 

bawls, “Bloody hell!

We'd all soon drown 

     around an El.”

     Jacques Bens 

(though friends may disagree)
has voted been 

     “Jass Queen (BC).”

     

OuLiPo! OuLiPo!

A, E, I, O, ULiPo!

     

     Claude Berge 

(a man best known as “Bud”)
pens tomes which graph his 

     large bee cud.

     

     Jacques Duchateau: 

dead, nu…?

     J’s cue qua Death...? A “**c***u!”

OuLiPo! OuLiPo!

What...? Why...? When...? Where...? WhoLiPo!

    

     Emmanuel Peillet, 

with zeal,

express’d it: “I meant 

     pull me eel.”

     François Le Lionnais 

agrees: “Blows no stiff breeze to roil

my new abecedarial 

     nonsensical airfoil.”

     

OuLiPo! OuLiPo!

Ten, eight, six, four, twoLiPo!

     Jean Lescure 

each broomer girl

esteems. Just hear him: 

     “See Jane curl!”

     Raymond Queneau: 

ya ring steel pan,
ya sing wid’ ban.’ 

     Queer...? Nya! Oud man.

OuLiPo! OuLiPo! 

(As such, they're much like you, Li Po.)

     Jean Queval, 

who must be seen
to be believ’d: 

     J, Lava Queen.

     Albert-Marie Schmidt 

claims it isn’t his fault:
sans searching, he finds, 

     amid birch trees…malt.

 

You be but what you doLiPo!

Yours very truly, 

                             Uly Poe.