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.

Stuff & Nonsense (Olim Fake News)

     Is it true that
the young North Korean
recently filmed defecting to the South
was named Ho Li Cao…?
 
     Is it true that
“Elvis Lives!” = Permanent Presley…?
 
     Is it true that
a sign recently appeared
above a basket of free bread outside 

a Bombay bakery which read:

“Have a loaf! It’s better than naan”…?
 
     Is it true that 

who takes to her bed
with some ST disease
so’s to not help me bang out
my new vocalise
is my Muse, while I cry,
“I’d so hoped, if ‘twould please,
you’d have sung me new tunes
using only black keys”...?
 
     Is it true that 

translation etcet'ra sets tasks Herculean --
e.g., "raison 'wet're" ain’t "reason for peein'"...?  
 
     Finally: 

Which conjunction does
grammeteorologic favor more…? 
Is it an 'and' or is it an 'and/or'…?
(Or is it only 'or'…?)

'Matters' Matters: A Rhyme

Black lives matter...? 'Deed they do!

Jack knives matter. (Bread knives, too.)

Green chives matter, as do blue.

Clean rives matter: pass right through.

Tight shives matter, should one brew.

Night drives matter, would one woo.

Endives matter. (That you knew.) 

Ten fives matter. (Bad luck due...?)

Charles Ives matters, listen'd to. 

Arles chives matter. (Misted, nu...?)
Ogives matter. (Move your pew!) 

“No Jive!” matters. True Blue (who....?)

Deep dives matter: name your crew.  

(Bleep!) swives matter. Shame on you!
Pull’d skives matter: ones off ewe. 

Full hives matter: honey's dew.

Alewives matter. Odor...? Whew! 

All lives matter! Deja vu.)

     * Verses can be personified by 

replacing 'Lou' with any of a range of 

other one-syllable given names, e.g., 

Drew, Sue, Fu, Pru, Stu and so forth.

Mr. POTUS Departs: A Timely Repost

Trump glowers. And glowers.
For hours and hours. And hours.
Fasces foul Trump scours.
(This lad ain’t Adenauer’s.)
Trump then (and how!) and now errs
in plying POTUS powers.
 
Trump shouts, “Trump never cowers!”
But, fin’lly, Trump’s Tao sours.
The People cry, “Enowers!
That Hun’s no son of ours.”
Trump splits. Trump hits the showers.
The GOP sends flowers.
 
And Trump no longer towers.

May The Monster...? Six Wishes For The Future Made Partially In The Form Of An Eye Rhyme

May the Monster Ball Tour’s Lady Gaga
mime Macbeth, Act II: “Is this a dagga…?”!
May Mick (Rolling Stone) Jagger, a jogga,

water cacti, some barr'l-shaped Bisnaga!
 
May Husseini (the Khan we call Agha)
grow organic’lly (Groan!) rutabaga!

May no frat boys spill Heineken Laga
at no Nu Pi fraternity kegga!
 
May an Abhogi Kanada raga
be sitar'd during rallies named MAGA!
May this hagiographical saga
magnify Aloysius Gonzaga!

Sestina Destiny: Uly's To'n'frolaly On 'What Next...?'

     A wolaly is a Poe-own'd poetic device, one deploying the elements of a word ladder in numerical order as final words in the lines of a stanza in numerical order. A to'n'frolaly is a longer version of the same form, one which deploys those elements first in forward order then in reverse order. In a to'n'frolaly, the last word of the first line is identical to the last word of the final line. It's a "there and back again" sorta deal.

"What's real...? Compared to what...?
(D'you think we need to chat...?
Says I, 'Good luck with that!
Our tête-à-tête's no teat.
Let's sip our spirits neat
while wondering, "What's next...?"')"

I penn'd one six-line text
while furbishing my tent.
When finish'd, 'twill be sent
back home to take its seat
near 'toons where sour souls spat,
nigh toilets where they shat.

Kept real...? Compared to what...?

DodecaDons or Index Of Cads, Set One

The SmiloDon

The KarlMalDon

The MastaDon

The PoseiDon

The LarDon
aka The HeDon

The TenDon
aka The ConDon

The MyrmiDon
aka The PhillipOfMaceDon

The BoustropheDon

The CorDon

The BombarDon

The ArmagedDon 

The LonDon
aka The WimbleDon 

     Dons awaiting illustration: 

  

The AveDon 

The RaDon 

The AbingDon 

The TweedleDon

The IguanoDon 

The WTFHaveYouDon 

The RobinEarlOfHuntingDon 

The PteranoDon 

The GungaDon 

The MyWorkHereIsDon 

The MelancholyDon 

The FlashGorDon 

The Franz Joseph HayDon

The IreneDon

The OdilonReDon 

The RiverJorDon

The Tyre&SiDon 

The AbbaDon

The RigauDon 

The BaDon-BaDon

The Seduced&AbanDon

The SelfParDon 

The AndQuietFlowsTheDon

Ozzo or Revenge Of The Pool Noodles

Nyx Nixes Nox

One Friday in Sept., 

Mr. Poe went to bed in his clothes.
But this soul rarely slept, 

making do with one haphazard doze.
He'd forgotten, no doubt, 

to slip out of his semi-brogue shoes.
(Had he done so, at worst 

he'd hav'd managed to, fitfully, snooze.)

"I'm too drain'd to disrobe, 

to drop trou, to get fully undress'd --

to but take off this button-down shirt. 

Yet I do need my rest.

If perhaps I start slowly -- 

say, doffing my milit'ry cap -- 

then might Itzpapalotl* 

kowtow -- and allow me a nap...?"

     * Aztec goddess of the stars

One Friday in Sept.,

Uly Poe went to bed in his clothes.

Next morning he wept

as he rued the decision he chose.

"Elsewhere, I might dare 

to get shut of those earmuffs I got

in my stocking last Christmas.

But here in Cape Fear...? I fear not."

(One advantage of earmuffs:

they Saturday morn's ruckus muffle.

Neighbors running young Russells,

the garbage men's recycling scuffle,

all fail to arouse, 

notwithstanding one lies fully dress'd.

Which bodes well -- as, unrested,

one's gestes might just lead to arrest.

On Friday in Sept.,

if a poet's in bed in his clothes...

(More to come: a work in progress)

Black Lives Patres: A Call For Activists, Masculine-Type, With A Nod To Their Respective Raven Regalia

Fannie Lou. Parks (Rosa), too.

We lack not Black Lives Matres.

So: where be bros...? We need, Lord knows,

some active Black Live Patres...? 

To save poor Hutu, Bishop Tutu
wields a Black Lives Mitre
to poke the pates of folk he hates
while crying, "Take that, blighter!"

The actor Sidney Poitier 

employs a Black Lives Meter

to trace the rates at which his mates

fund Afrocentric the'ter.

Chef Grant (Jerome when he's at home)

employs a Black Lives Mortar

to grind each herb in his superb

stuff'd trout. (I'm a supporter.)

Track-and-field star Jesse Owens

was a Black Lives Mudder.

'Twas not his bane to trot in rain.

(Imagine mud: you'll shudder.)

To oft enthrall us, Bubba Wallace

drives a Black Lives Motor.

No stars 'n' bars grace Bubba's cars:

Bubb ain't no Drumpf promotor.

Police destroy'd George Perry Floyd. 

Another Black Lives Martyr.

What's to be done...? Can anyone

spell 'Justice,' for a starter...?

Make trouble good, John Lewis would.

Was John a Black Lives "Merde!"er...?

I'm thinking not. John's people taught

him well: "John didn't dare ter."

Are Walmart greeters Black Lives Meeters...?

Difficult to tell.

But ev'ry Black Lives Murder trigger man

belongs in hell.

Look Who's Watching!

It once was call’d the USA.
Its polis…? All-American!
But that, ex-pat, was yesterday.
It's now call'd Upper Handustan.

The tyrant there’s a billionaire,
an autocratic gooberman
who swears allegiance to the Con-

stitution...NOT! (Because he can,

he swears allegiance to the ban-
derole of Upper Handustan.)