Day Twenty-Five. Today is the end of the fifth group of five, with one more group of five to go. Five more days. Five more poems. Though today, both Alan and I really up the ante and the numbers.
Maureen Thorson's NaPoWriMo prompt: "It’s the weekend, so I thought we might go with something short and just a bit (or a lot) silly – the Clerihew. These are rhymed, humorous quatrains involving a specific person’s name."
Robert Lee Brewer's PAD prompt: write an across the sea poem. This could be a love letter, an electronic submission through cyber space and time, or a travel poem (by air or sea, though probably not car). Modern travel or back in the days of rugged explorers. Wandering or wondering, your choice.
Combining Robert's "across the sea" prompt with NaPoWriMo.net's clerihew prompt. Here goes.
Clerihews for a Famous Literary Sailor
Herman Melville
Was into whale kill,
So he wrote the famous Moby-Dick
Although harpooning was not his schtick.
Herman Melville
Couldn't spell well.
The real guy's name was Israel,
But Herman misspelled it as Ishmael.
Herman Melville
Didn't sell well.
Thousands of Moby-Dick copies left over,
In his attic, his basement, and his mom's, moreover.
Herman Melville
Fished for bluegill.
He said it was almost as fun as whale,
If you don't consider matters of scale.
Herman Melville
Visited Nashville.
Where Moby-Dick didn't get him too far
'Cause he couldn't sing or play guitar.
Herman Melville
Scared a Paris demoiselle.
She said, "Mon cheri, with you it's wrong.
Your Moby-Dick is just too long."
—Drafts by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
If you've been following Alan's bravura poeming all month, the cornucopia of clerihews below probably won't surprise you. Alan says, "The first two fulfill the two prompts. The rest are extra."
Crossing the Sea Clerihews
Annabelle Ridgeway
began her day
by taking a lone three a.m. bus trip for a Slushie
and thereby became (albeit briefly) more well-known than Salman Rushdie.
Vince Gotera
wished to emulate Peter Cetera,
and single-handedly brought about a Midwest embargo
on touring bar bands who cover Chicago.
Billy Collins
is no Henry Rollins,
but he’s sold a zillion
volumes at Books-a-Million.
John Boehner,
the Orange Complainer,
has proven himself no smartier
than the average Tea Partier.
John McCain,
explain
what your next war
is for.
Dick Cheney
belongs in American political miscellany
for being calculating though artless
and for living while being literally heartless.
Mitt Romney,
in spite of his bum knee,
ran for months
just like a dunce.
Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz
is bound to lose
if he runs out of wingnut sloganeering ammunition
and contributes to GOP voter attrition.
Scott Kevin Walker,
the Koch brothers’ stalker,
has moved from their position on immigration
and compromised his bid for the GOP nomination.
Marco Antonio Rubio
screwed up in the studio
by lunging for water while delivering a GOP response
like a kindergartener who discovers his pants are unzipped during the Pledge of Allegiance.
Mike Huckabee,
really,
is the most effective thing you can say
is that folks should eat at Chik-fil-A?
—Drafts by Thomas Alan Holmes [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
Some of those are really quite hilarious, Alan. Depending on which side of the aisle you're on, so to speak, I guess. Well, since you wrote a clerihew for me, I am only too glad to reciprocate.
Associate Dean Thomas Alan Holmes,
of ETSU’s administrative catacombs,
got royally — as the British say — pissed
with his buddy Thomas Crofts, medievalist.
Thomas Alan Holmes,
associate dean, writes poems
that rhyme and scan and chiefly consist
of the exploits of Thomas Crofts, medievalist.
—Drafts by Vince Gotera [Do not copy or quote . . . thanks.]
 |
Thomas Crofts,
medievalist |
If you're not familiar with Alan's poems about Thomas Crofts, medievalist, click here. There are quite a few of them here on the blog as well as out in the world, both online and in print. At right is Thomas Crofts, medievalist, himself, brandishing his favorite blade, with which he doth smite all miscreants. Click on the image to see it lo! full magnified.
I got a bit of help with these two clerihews from my girlfriend Kathy. She came up with "catacombs" to rhyme with "Holmes" — a brilliant word given what Alan often says about administration. Wait, did I say that? And also "exploits" for the storied derring-do of Thomas Crofts, medievalist. We both hope to "goon on pilgrimages" to Tennessee — mayhaps this summer? — to finally meet in person Thomas Alan Holmes, associate dean, and his estoc-wielding sometimes-accomplice sometimes-literary-character Thomas Crofts, medievalist. ヅ
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Ingat, everyone. ヅ |
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3 comments:
I must make it clear with great emphasis that Thomas Crofts, medievalist, is not my sidekick. In fact, I am, at best, his chronicler when I am not his accomplice.
Fair enough. Though he does wield an estoc. There is photographic evidence.
Word "sidekick" has been changed. :-D
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