Doggerel Ii

Doggerel II: Doggerel about Doggerel, or, More Nonsense Verse The Board by Michael R. Burch Accessible rhyme is never good. The penalty is understood: soft titters from dark board rooms where the businessmen paste on their hair and, Walter Mitties, woo the Muse with reprimands of Dr. Seuss. The best book of the age sold two, or three, or four (but not to you), strange copies of the ones before, misreadings that delight the board. They sit and clap; their revenues fall trillions short of Mother Goose. Doggerel about Dogs Dog Daze by Michael R. Burch Sweet Oz is a soulful snuggler; he really is one of the best. Sometimes in bed he snuggles my head, though he mostly just plops on my chest. I think Oz was made to love from the first ray of light to the dark, but his great love for me is exceeded (oh gee!) by his Truly Great Passion: to Bark. Oz is the Boss! by Michael R. Burch Oz is the boss! Because? Because ... Because of the wonderful things he does! He barks like a tyrant for treats and a hydrant; his voice far more regal than mere greyhound or beagle; his serfs must obey him or his yipping will slay them! Oz is the boss! Because? Because ... Because of the wonderful things he does! Excoriation of a Treat Slave by Michael R. Burch I am his Highness’s dog at Kew. Pray tell me, sir, whose dog are you? -Alexander Pope We practice our fierce Yapping, for when the treat slaves come they’ll grant Us our desire. (They really are that dumb!) They’ll never catch Us napping: our Ears pricked, keen and sharp. When they step into Our parlor, We’ll leap awake, and Bark. But one is rather doltish; he doesn’t understand the meaning of Our savage, imperial, wild Command. The others are quite docile and bow to Us on cue. We think the dull one wrote a poem about some Dog from Kew who never grasped Our secret, whose mind stayed think, and dark. It’s a question of obedience conveyed by a Lordly Bark. But as for playing fetch, well, that’s another matter. We think the dullard’s also as mad as any hatter and doesn’t grasp his duty to fling Us slobbery balls which We’d return to him, mincingly, here in Our royal halls. Bed Head, or, the Ballad of Beth and her Fur Babies by Michael R. Burch When Beth and her babies prepare for “good night” sweet rituals of kisses and cuddles commence. First Wickett, the eldest, whose mane has grown light with the wisdom of age and advanced senescence is tucked in, “just right.” Then Mary, the mother, is smothered with kisses in a way that befits such an angelic missus. Then Melody, lambkin, and sweet, soulful Oz and cute, clever Xander all clap their clipped paws and follow sweet Beth to their high nightly roost where they’ll sleep on her head (or, perhaps, her caboose). Woeful Waffles by Michael R. Burch for and after Richard Thomas Moore I think it’s woeful and should be unlawful to eat those awful tofu waffles! More Doggerel about Doggerel Happily Never After by Michael R. Burch Happily never after, we lived unmerrily (write it!--like disaster) in Our Kingdom by the See as the man from Porlock’s laughter drowned out love’s threnody. We ditched the red wheelbarrow in slovenly Tennessee and made a picturebook of poems, a postcard for Tse-Tse, a list of resolutions we knew we couldn’t keep, and asylum decorations for the King in his dark sleep. We made it new so often strange newness, wearing old, peeled off, and something rotten gleamed yellow, not like gold:-- like carelessness, or cowardice, and redolent of pee. We stumbled off, our awkwardness--new Keystone comedy. Huge cloudy symbols blocked the sun; onlookers strained to see. We said We were the only One. Our gaseous Melody had made us Joshuas, and so--the Bible, new-rewrit, with god removed, replaced by Show and Glyphics and Sanskrit, seemed marvelous to Us, although King Ezra said, “It’s Sh-t.” We spent unhappy hours in Our Kingdom of the Pea, drunk on such Awesome Power only Emperors can See. We were Imagists and Vorticists, Projectivists, a Dunce, Anarchists and Antarcticists and anti-Christs, and once We’d made the world Our oyster and stowed away the pearl of Our too-, too-polished wisdom, unanchored of the world, We sailed away to Lilliput, to Our Kingdom by the See and piped the rats to join Us, to live unmerrily hereever and hereafter, in Our Kingdom of the Pea, in the miniature ship Disaster in a jar in Tennessee. Longer Doggerel When I Was Small, I Grew by Michael R. Burch When I was small, God held me in thrall: Yes, He was my All but my spirit was crushed. As I grew older my passions grew bolder even as Christ grew colder. My distraught mother blushed: what was I thinking, with feral lust stinking? If I saw a girl winking my face, heated, flushed. “Go see the pastor!” Mom screamed. A disaster. I whacked away faster, hellbound, yet nonplused. Whips! Chains! Domination! Sweet, sweet, my Elation! With each new sensation, blue blood groinward rushed. Did God disapprove? Was Christ not behooved? At least I was moved by my hellish lust. Dee Light Full by Michael R. Burch A cross-dressing dancer, “Dee Lite,” wore gowns luciferously bright till he washed them one day the old-fashioned way ... in bleach. Now he’s “Sister Off-White.” Severance by Michael R. Burch There once was a bubbly bartender, a transvestite who went on a bender. “I cut myself off,” she cried with a sob, “There’s the evidence, there in the blender!” Updated Advice to Amorous Bachelors by Michael R. Burch At six-thirty, feeling flirty, I put on the hurdy-gurdy ... But Ms. Purdy, all alert-y, kicked me where I’m sore and hurty. The moral of my story? To avoid a fate as gory, flirt with gals a bit more wh-rey! Keywords/Tags: doggerel, nonsense, nonsense verse, light verse, light poetry, humor, humorous, silly, silliness, limerick, limericks, jingle, jangle