Poetry with Known Origins


If an S and an I and an O and a U
With an X at the end spell Su;
And an E and a Y and an E spell I,
Pray what is a speller to do?
Then, if also an S and an I and a G
And an HED spell side,
There's nothing much left for a speller to do
But to go commit siouxeyesighed.
-- by Charles Follen Adams, "An Orthographic Lament"

But scientists, who ought to know
Assure us that it must be so.
Oh, let us never, never doubt
What nobody is sure about.
-- by Hilaire Belloc

While Europe's eye is fix'd on mighty things,
The fate of empires and the fall of kings;
While quacks of State must each produce his plan,
And even children lisp the Rights of Man;
Amid this mighty fuss just let me mention,
The Rights of Woman merit some attention.
-- by Robert Burns,
Address on "The Rights of Woman",
November 26, 1792

Posterity will ne'er survey
A nobler grave than this;
Here lie the bones of Castlereagh;
Stop, traveler, and piss.
-- by Lord Byron, on Lord Castlereagh

Eisenhower was very nice,
Nixon was his only vice.
-- by C. Degen

Saturday night in Toledo Ohio,
    Is like being nowhere at all,
All through the day how the hours rush by,
    You sit in the park and you watch the grass die.
-- by John Denver, "Saturday Night in Toledo Ohio"

A computer, to print out a fact,
Will divide, multiply, and subtract.
     But this output can be
     No more than debris,
If the input was short of exact.
-- by Gigo

When you're away, I'm restless, lonely,
Wretched, bored, dejected; only
Here's the rub, my darling dear
I feel the same when you are near.
-- by Samuel Hoffenstein, "When You're Away"

I have learned
To spell hors d'oeuvres
Which still grates on
Some people's n'oeuvres.
-- by Warren Knox

To A Quick Young Fox:
    Why jog exquisite bulk, fond crazy vamp,
    Daft buxom jonquil, zephyr's gawky vice?
    Guy fed by work, quiz Jove's xanthic lamp --
    Zow! Qualms by deja vu gyp fox-kin thrice.
-- by Lazy Dog

Since I hurt my pendulum
My life is all erratic.
My parrot, who was cordial,
Is now transmitting static.
The carpet died, a palm collapsed,
The cat keeps doing poo.
The only thing that keeps me sane
Is talking to my shoe.
-- by My Shoe

A pig is a jolly companion,
Boar, sow, barrow, or gilt --
A pig is a pal, who'll boost your morale,
Though mountains may topple and tilt.
When they've blackballed, bamboozled, and burned you,
When they've turned on you, Tory and Whig,
Though you may be thrown over by Tabby and Rover,
You'll never go wrong with a pig, a pig,
You'll never go wrong with a pig!
-- by Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"

For years a secret shame destroyed my peace --
I'd not read Eliot, Auden or MacNiece.
But now I think a thought that brings me hope:
Neither had Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Pope.
-- by Justin Richardson

All the world's a VAX,
And all the coders merely butchers;
They have their exits and their entrails;
And one int in his time plays many widths,
His sizeof being N bytes. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the Regent's arms.
And then the whining schoolboy, with his Sun,
And shining morning face, creeping like slug
Unwillingly to school.
-- by A Very Annoyed PDP-11

I get up each morning, gather my wits.
Pick up the paper, read the obits.
If I'm not there I know I'm not dead.
So I eat a good breakfast and go back to bed.

Oh, how do I know my youth is all spent?
My get-up-and-go has got-up-and-went.
But in spite of it all, I'm able to grin,
And think of the places my get-up has been.
-- by Pete Seeger

A lady with one of her ears applied
To an open keyhole heard, inside,
Two female gossips in converse free --
The subject engaging them was she.
"I think", said one, "and my husband thinks
That she's a prying, inquisitive minx!"
As soon as no more of it she could hear
The lady, indignant, removed her ear.
"I will not stay," she said with a pout,
"To hear my character lied about!"
-- by Gopete Sherany

We wish you a Hare Krishna
We wish you a Hare Krishna
We wish you a Hare Krishna
And a Sun Myung Moon!
-- by Maxwell Smart

From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving,
Whatever gods may be,
That no life lives forever,
That dead men rise up never,
That even the weariest river winds somewhere safe to sea.
-- by Swinburne

Hark, Hark, the dogs do bark
The Duke is fond of kittens
He likes to take their insides out
And use them for his mittens
-- From "The Thirteen Clocks"

If I traveled to the end of the rainbow
As Dame Fortune did intend,
Murphy would be there to tell me
The pot's at the other end.
-- by Bert Whitney

Probable-Possible, my black hen,
She lays eggs in the Relative When.
She doesn't lay eggs in the Positive Now
Because she's unable to postulate how.
-- by Frederick Winsor