*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!
