Dervishish (Or, as friend-of-the-blog JC's Brooklyn dad used to teach the youngsters: "Ersters'll sperl if ya berl 'em in erl.")

Ur's santurs skirl. One chap (no churl: friends call 'im Burl, the Earl of Twirl) dons skirts o' pearl. Tight folds unfurl to form a curl. Burl twirls; skirts swirl. (‘Twere me...? I’d hurl.)

“’Tis but,” says Merlin, ”psycho-neur’l.” Still, dervish, whirlin' gets the girl -- not urban: rur'l! From Russia (Ur'l)... a gal call'd Shirl. (This blather...? As per Lawrence Durr'll.)

New Prosopogostichs: Lenny Bruce

Not unpleasant to know…? Mr. 
Bruce,
one whose humor’s been label'd ab-
struse.
True: Len's gambols weren’t no Mother 
Goose
and Len struggled with substance a-
buse.
Yet the fallout from Lenny’s pro-
fuse:
Robin, Richard and George* siphon'd
juice
from the pleasant-to-know Mr. 
Bruce.
Of comedians, Lenny's the 
Zeus.
     * Williams, Pryor and Carlin et al.

"Mondo Cane" Reimagined or 'God's to 'Dog's: an Open-ended Series of Fifteen (so far) "Gott zu Spot" Distichs in Doggerel from GFH and UXP

When 'god's become 'dog's, our world does a one-eighty-one.

When gods turn dogs (those words, I mean), folks spot strange stuff they've never seen,
hear high-pitch'd "r-r-ruff!" once shelv'd between repugnant and downright obscene.

     Dogiva...? She's no lady, sir, tho' hounds regard the bitch demure,
despite her showing all that fur. A "show" dog...? Sure. (But still a cur.)

     Most fear Charybdis, shy at Scylla, shrink from Kong -- that whole megillah.
Blanch they, but,* before Dogzilla? Nossir! Not one slim scintilla.
     * The phrase-ending 'but' suggests this exception is spoken by a northern UK speaker -- 
or perhaps one hailing from Ireland or Australia.

     Reading wunderkind Kurt Dögel, grey cells (mine) begin to gurgle:
"Might I, if Kurt's work I'd burgle, in short order square the cirgle...?"

     Two on stage (where...? I dunno): twin ev'rymen await Dogot.
Will Didi stay? Will Gogo blow? (Dogot does, subsequently, show.)

     Arthur Dogfrey pours out tea. (One lump or two...? The biscuit's free.) 
His lapdog rep...? Hyperbole: those barks 'n' bites suck equally.

     Dogwarts founder Gryffindor -- first name o' Dogric (less or more) --
sows sorcery 'n' swords galore. (That mutt has much to answer for.)

     "Dogspell" fails to win the Tony. "Annie" wins. The ceremony
spawns, in Sandy,* acrimony. (Verse like this...? Show-biz baloney.)
     * Annie's canine companion and costar isn't even nominated.

     Chihuahuas touring Chichen Itza, Balkan Hounds from Srebrenica,
Spot, Duke, Fido...no dog eats a taco from Dogfather's Pizza.

     Srebrenica (see above), a spot where dognosc's spoken of:
8,000 pups the final shove are dealt. Tough luck...? (It ain't tough love.)

     From Queen Lucia’s motor-car, the French New Wave’s Jean-Luc Dogard
burlesques Miss Mapp’s “Au reservoir!” – or so airs dogged NPR.

     Harold Dogwinson's fraught flight to Hastings -- although not too bright --
still wins the day, so that this knight is afterwards "the Conquer'r" hight.
          
     Robert Doggard's daedal dearth rocketry aborts at birth.
Astronauts -- for what it's worth -- can't "slip the surly bonds of earth."

     Professor Dogbole barks lore. No “man’s best friend,” he lacks rapport,
this friend of Forster’s from Lahore who’s not heard barking, “Mrs. Moore!”

     Behold! The pets of epigram! The pooch whose puppy's call'd "The Lamb."
The mutt who barks, "I Am Who Am." The dog of Abraham...
                                                                                         Dogdamn!

(Future “‘god’s to ‘dog’s” candidates: an open-ended work in progress)

The Thankless Dead’s Keith Dogchaux

Krafty Food's Green Dogdess: salad dressing or mouthwash?
dogman:  a type of untouchable in India

The Friends of Friday Spast

Console poor Monday Noone -- so-o-o-o overweight.
Meet Tuesday Brighton-Hurley, fashion plate.
Shun Wednesday Weecke: her lovers she devours,
as does seductress Thursday Haft ter Howers.
Say "hey!" to woman’s libber Friday Knight
and Saturday Moore-Ning, hermaphrodite.
Each gal you greet’s a friend of Friday Spast.
including Sunday Brunche. ‘Tis quite the cast!

(Other friends of Ms. Spast. Their verses are in progress) 

Monday Blaahz
Tuesday “Eve” Ning
Wednesday Sawph
Thursday Dawne 
Friday Phorte-Knight
Saturday Haft-Daye
Sunday Sirvisses

Monday Sleplayte
Tuesday "Happy" Hauer
Wednesday Sayle-Zeevent
Thursday Sklosed
Friday Prerz
Saturday Danse
Sunday Skule 

ZweiOdes

As you haul coals to Newcastle, 
might you, por moi,
amass aardvarks to sell
in Abel-Beth-Maacah? * 

     * Biblical authors write of a wise woman

who once dwelt there but make no mention
of a live animal market. 

Be she t(hr)ower of babble? 
Blame (blush) my bum habit,
my culpa! But...Abbie Boudreau’s
been a babbit!”

Cor! Here's Jorge Luis Borges!
Cor de l'Argentine eez Jor: "Heez
accidence enhances stories
cached een Chechen Cacci'tores!"

When AM added Daddy-O,*
dark DJ, to my rahdio,
they proved: extending feelers
can yield real emcees, not spielers.
     * Chicago radio personality Holmes Daylie

Affairs of the fart
felt in far-off terrains
risk ripe redolence. (And 
barely visible stains.)

Giggl’ing, one Googles
“three gaggles o' geese,”
crying, "Larry* and Sergey:* 
please leave me in peace!"
      * Page and Brin, founders of Google 

‘High-hat,’ ‘high-hand,’ 
‘high-horse,’ ‘high holy days...’
'high-'…HAH! (A case of
“damn’d with freighted phrase.”)

Invoking my μους-, I (non-
Greek) sue for news: “Ανδρα
μαλαπολλ' εννεπα
μοι…”
Show Achilles? No! Showies and 
tellies show Hellene Elle 
Ilii* (Helen of
Troy).
     * Genitive singular of 'Ilium.' 

My menage during haj 
during Raj (just for fun)
stanch’d my stutter.
Of "...jej-jej...jej-june..." they heard none.

Don’t vote to tax
Nicola’s Delft or Spode.
Just kick Nic’s knickknacks' taxes 
down the road.

     A-
board the good ship 
Lollypop, life's good, 
though sacch'rin smarm's the 
stuff of songs of Shirl's.) 
     Still, 
suckers: stop! Please 
cease the siphonhood! 
Such sucking saps o-
bese, balloon-shaped girls.

Your pharaoh dies,
befriends my goat –
the pair grows fairly chummy.
Then Nurse and Momma
shoot this film:
"The Nanny Meeps The Mummy."

A Fool shall not
for Mongoose vouch,
but Cobra choose. 
How odd. How...OUCH!

Dr...Sergeant...chili...pot:
Stop! Put in more 'pepper'...Not!

     Quick! Go
east on that Qarghaliq-
Qaraqum Trail: get good
Bar-B-Q Coq...and great
Bar-B-Q Quail,
     * The direction travelled -- ENE, roughly -- 
between these Asian cuisine hotspots.

I.S.O. road or
driveway warrior?
Better call 
the Brothers Boyer!*
     * Junior relations of the author

All at sea in Seas Sargasso,
sailors may request a lasso.
Sassafras's gas shall pass,
but schlusselfiedels?* "Such a ass!" ** 
     * Kinds of hurdy-gurdy    **Pace, Mr. Dickens

Kitt's kit? That pattern’s
known as tattersall.
But I’ve left torn Kitt's 
knit togs – tatters, all.

     I'd
figured I'd bagg’d me a
gnu, up until 
     I'd looked
under the fur and found 
you, Uncle Phil!

"Vav-vav-...vav...a vav-...va-v-...vavoom!"
(I hear a stutter! But from whom?
It’s Dona D-cup, I presume –
she of the fabulous ba-zoom.)

Who? Woodrow Wilson's widow.
Where? Near Wicklow West. What? Dead.
Now...when? Clews found suggest 'twas Sunday... 
who knows why! How? Bled.

     Mix xan-
thoma with rosacea: the re-
sulting skin disease
     is what, when 
six xiphopagi repaint the
xerox room, one sees.

To marry your mother 
so many years back?
My mistake (don't talk back!) 
Blame my yackety yak!

They sang "Zizzi-zizzi-...!" yesterday, 
sang "...boom-boom-aay!" today.
What shall zyzzogetons* sing tomorrow? 
Difficult to say.
        * The very last word -- in South American leaf hoppers 
and in my pocket dictionary.

Dyadyssey Book 2 1/2

With an A/B, who's to say be-
ret'd artistes won't make a baby? 

With a C/D, yes indeedy! 
We shall catch a cold. We’re speedy.  

With an E/F, even we -- deaf! --
dare we not erect a G-clef? 

With a G/H, waving fee, wage
and expense, we'll twirl a tach gauge.  

With an I/J, we'll oblige (say) 
Raul Castro to chirp, "Hi, Che!"*

With a K/L, if we say, "Well... 
no can do!" there'll be, to pay, hell.

With an M/N, men from Bremen 
and good luck, we'll launch a lemon.  

We'll, with O/P (though with no pi-
ranhas), craft kachinas (Hopi).  

With a Q/R, seven who are 
skill’d can blow a "vaquum" Dewar. 

With an S/T, we'll not rest. (He 
who might thwart us? Wa-a-ay too chesty.) 

With a U/V -- ain't it groovy? –
we should shoot a silent "mouvie." 

Double U/X…? Single U/X…?
“Second’s best,” notes Ernest Truex.' 

Last, with Y/Z, something spicy.
Backwards zoos! (Though zoos prove pricey.)  

New Prosopogostichs: Herbert Crowley

Not unpleasant to know...? Mr. Crowley.* 
Not an artist to toss in the towel. He,
I'll be bound, seems well-rounded, less jowly
than stout Sino-Vietnamese Hao, Li.**
Often diss'd by harsh critics most foully
(pann'd one pundit, "Ol' Herb's a tad owly...")
is the pleasant-to-know Herbert Crowley,
who, I swan, prompts this connoisseur's howl: "Ee-ee-ee-ee…"
     * Search online for Herbert in conjunction with his Wiggle-Much (pardon the expression). You won't be disappointed. 
     ** 'Hao' is a Vietnamese word for 'good.' Li is the second most popular surname in China. Of course, Hao would ordinarily be referred to as Li Hao but hey...who's list'nin'...? (Or listin' for that matter.)  

Tik-Tok Introduces Les Temps Perduphabet

Ages amble on for years. Not Advents: four weeks...tops. 
An afternoon drags on for days – as Act IIIs do when flops.
An attosecond...? Light takes time to make those two short hops!*

     * An attosecond measures the time light takes to travel the width 
of two hydrogen atoms, about one quintillionth of a second. 

Blips be brief. And as for beats...? But fractions of a bar.

Some thirty minutes, bells at sea. (In class, bells fifty are.*)
Biennia exhaust two years, then bid you, "Au revoir."

     * Back in the day, the length of a typical high-school Algebra class 
in minutes (though feeling far longer to certain participants). 

The time a candle takes to burn runs several hundred hours.

A century...? Eight hundred thousand hours -- and more -- devours. 
(The first depends on how one takes account of candlepowers.)   

One’s life spins seven decades out -- in years, that's three score ten

(assuming decades ten years span): so scrawls the Psalmist's pen. 
(A day...? In hours, twenty-four: so strokes Old Smoke’s* Big Ben.)

      * A nickname originally bestowed on London due to its smog.

The moniker has persisted. 

An epoch's length's determin’d by a slew of 'ic'y stuff –

like geometr'ic's, astronom'ic's, phys'ic's... (Had enough...?) 
"Yer era's just yer ERA,"* opines one baseball buff.

     * In baseball, the average number of runs given up by a 
pitcher – his so-called earned run average – and not a 
measure of time at all. 

A Friedman marks the past six moons; a fortnight, fourteen suns. 

A February...? Eight ‘n’ twenty – 'cept in leap year runs.
A time frame's fluid: Al Jarreau took five and raked in tons.
(A femtosecond's far too short: the time buff femtos shuns.)

How long's a generation...? Whom you quiz may well prove weighty.

Galactic years...? Since time began, far fewer've flown than eighty.* 
A gigasecond lasts one second – times one billion, matey!
(Gestations and Gregori'n years...? Sure…IF you hail from Haiti.)

     * About 61 since the Big Bang, as the time it takes the solar

system to orbit the center of the Milky Way (which is the length
of a galactic year) measures about 225 million earth years.

A moment lasts a minute and a half. Thus: half a mo

should, as a rule, last merely five and forty seconds. Go!
Some sev’ral heartbeats– seventy plus two – each minute fill.
(There may beat more -- or way, way less -- if one falls gravely ill.)
A hectosecond takes a hundred seconds, more or less.
How many in an hour...? Hey! Just do the math. (Or guess.)

An instant takes no time at all. Indictions...? Fifteen years.

An instant’s just a snapshot of "right now" -- in, say, Algiers.
(A verse which blends ‘em both...? Perhaps a Limerick of Lear’s.)

A jiffy measures time elaps’d as light migrates one fermi.

(A fermi fur fans fail to find in tomes on taxidermy.)
A jubilee is fifteen years. (Who so explains that term? Me!)

What’s ten plus four and four/tenths minutes long...? The answer’s ke.

A ke’s Chinese, Its sound approximates a Frenchman’s ‘bleu.’
A kilosecond’s three halves of a ke…and so: adieu!   

Most Lents last forty days. For folks who’re fasting, they’re a strife time.

For lunar months, slice one half day off thirty days: ‘tis knife time!
A lustrum lasts five years. When you’re in jail, that seems a lifetime.
The bachelor (unless confirm’d) lives, for his sins, a wifed time.

A month o’ Sundays...? Thirty weeks. (In tete-a-tetes, much greater.)

A moment lasts one minute and one half – not one tick later.
(M times abound. But, in the meantime, see ya later, 'gator!)

The time twixt lights turn’d green and car horns honk’d...? A New York minute.

The length of night depends on where on earth good souls begin it.
A billionth of a second...? That’s a nanosecond...i’n’it...?

Olympiad's years...? Four. That's how long athlete stars must wait
in gala op'ning ceremonies to participate.
Whoever fails to qualify ends up in waiting eight.

Plank Time is assumed to be the shortest length of time.
To physicists who so assume, the Planck's a paradigm.
A period lasts two to seven days -- and doesn't rhyme.

A quarter lasts eleven weeks. (My teachers claim it's ten.)   
I'll cut a class to watch Olympics every now and then.
Quadrennia employ four years. (Olympiads again!)

A show should have a lengthy run if writ by Shakespeare, Will.
Kelly closed on op'ning night. Dramatic value...? Nil. 
Agatha's The Mousetrap's run...? Who knows...? It's running still.

A Swedberg's not a Sievert nor a Sverdrup...truth to tell.
A Swedberg lasts one hundred femtoseconds. Speed...? Pell-mell.
I gave a lamb's tail two quick shakes. That lamb moved fast as hell.

The time treads at a torpid crawl for cats who'd make a scene.
A Spring semester, forged of weeks, lasts (more or less) fifteen.
At thirteen weeks, a season's shorter: that few contravene.
The score of Cats fills up two acts, with interval between.
(A sider'al year...? You'd best consult your science magazine.)

A Hitchcock take ten minutes takes; a Warhol, thirty-three.
(Review "Long take" on Wikipedia. It's there; you'll see.)
A Tatum? Quicker than a trice...? (Art wouldn't disagree.)

The Upper Pal'olithic...? 50,000 years (or so)
ago that age gets going -- and it goes till...I dunno...
('Twould seem its length depends a lot on depths of Ice Age snow.) 

How long a vamp 'til ready lasts depends on sev'ral things:
how fast or slow the song, and when the diva fin'lly sings.
Vacations last the summer long. (The shorter one's the spring's.)  

A watch at sea in hours...? Four -- or five or six, sometimes.
A while might take awhile -- days, hours...years in southern climes.
(It often takes me quite awhile to find a word which rhymes.)

An exasecond's longer than our universe's age.
As such, it's theoretical by anybody's gauge.
You disagree...? You own the right to simply turn the page.

Yoctoseconds are the shortest lifetimes ever seen.  
To measure yottaseconds. timers need a time machine.
A year's a "lotta seconds." (Was my punning unforeseen...?)

Zeptoseconds…zettasseconds: one's real short; one's long.
Or is it t'other way around: I always get 'em wrong.
It's all lost time...in spans of rhyme...and intervals of song.