[Tim Murphy]

I don't know that any of this verse is quite up to the rarefied levels of this board, but the jokes are great:

Advice for Bear Country

A black or brown will never do you harm
if he can help it. Simply wave your arm
while pointing at him with your walking stick
and shouting "Go away!" Then make a quick
but quiet exit. Go home a different way.
A grizzly, though, might see you as his prey,
and if he does there's no deterring him.
He's mean. He'll disembowel you on a whim.
You'll merely piss him off by shouting "Shoo!"
and pointing your walking stick. He eats those, too.
Three things that you can do for safety's sake:
wear little bells whose noise will gently wake
a sleeping bear before you get too close.
And carry pepper spray. A well-aimed dose
might slow him down, a bit. And watch the ground
for droppings so you'll know if he's around.
His crap is easily recognized. It smells
like pepper and is festooned with little bells.

--Richard Wakefield

Cushioning the Blow

We thought it best to leave the cat with Ted
along with Grandma, when we went away.
No sooner were we home from holiday
than, bluntly, he announced the cat was dead.

“Listen!” I said, “Bad news is better told
obliquely--such as, ‘Bess went climbing on
the roof, and fell. Her legs and back were gone.
They tried to save her but she was too old.’ ”

Ted--who’s direct but not a thoughtless man--
was chastened (so he said) and mortified.
“Don’t worry, Cousin Edward”, I replied.
“We all drop clangers. By the way, how’s Gran?”

“Not great”, he said. “In fact, to tell the truth,
last night she went out climbing on the roof……”

--David Anthony

The Peg-leg Pig

A farmer’s daughter keeps a hog
who sports a wooden leg.
“Tell me about that peg-leg pig,”
travelling salesmen beg.

“He saved me from a rabid skunk.
He stomped it with his peg.”
Suspiciously a seed man squints:
“How did he lose the leg?”

“He found me when a whiteout hit
and led me through the snow.”
“You called the vet to amputate?
A case of frostbite?” “No.

“He pulled me from a flaming barn
before the rafters fell.”
“Enough to put me off my corn.
It must have hurt like hell.”

“Who said my peg-leg pig was lamed?
He never got a scratch.”
“That leg is missing all the same.
Sister, what’s the catch?

“Was it chomped on by a bigger pig
or torn off by a plow,
squashed beneath a threshing rig
or trampled by a cow?

“Was the porker born to walk on wood
or crippled in his prime?”
“Mister, you eat a pig this good
one leg at a time.”

--Tim Murphy

[Anthony Lombardy]

These are wonderful, Tim. And it is a pleasant surprise to see that David Anthony, who did not have the privilege of growing up in the American South, has yet managed to learn that, correctly pronounced, "truth/roof" is a perfect rhyme!

[Roger Slater]

I think we all knew David's poem from the legendary Bakeoff of 2002, but it was a treat to read Richard's and Tim's poems. I'd never heard the joke in Tim's poem before, and it's interesting why it's funny...somehow we all subscribe to a taboo (which is codified somewhere in the Old Testament) that it's okay to eat animals, but not okay to eat them one limb at a time.

My offering isn't nearly as good, and doesn't strictly fit the mode of the poems posted so far, but if we're looking for poems that make reference to jokes, and if we stipulate that the poems needn't be up to the usual high standards of Erato, the following may qualify:

JOKES TALK BACK

1. The Chicken

Human beings must be mad!
They must be bored and lonely.
There's so much to discuss and yet
they seem to want to only

chat about the street I crossed
and wonder what possessed me.
I guess it's better that they talk
about me than digest me.

2. The Fireman

I'm sick of people asking me
about my red suspenders.
For me the question tops the list
of conversation enders.

But if you want to guarantee
a conversation stopped,
just say I stuck my feet in flames
to see my corns get popped.

2. The Elephant

Can you tell time? Then tell me this:
What time is it when I
elect to lounge upon a fence
and gaze up at the sky?

You think it's time to fix the fence?
No, my friend, you're wrong.
I gave up peanuts, lost a ton.
Besides, the fence is strong.

It can be any time at all.
There's no way you can tell.
I love to watch the sky by day
but midnight works as well.

[Tim Murphy]

Those are cute, Roger. I think a characteristic of "classic joke poems" is that the original punchline should have poetic merit. I queried Richard, and sure 'nuff, it was the smells/bells in the original punchline that led him to write backwards. I suspect David recognized the comic possibilities of "truth/roof" (so brilliantly elucidated by Tony), and wrote his poem backwards too. I think a great joke poem can be even funnier if you know the joke. Everyone here knows the Pig joke, and they start to crack up at about line six. Same thing happened to my brother when I read him Richard's Bears, and same thing happened when I read David's poem in England. I wrote the Pig because the punchline was a perfect half measure of ballad stanza, and yes, I wrote it backwards. Here's another from my newest book, the final couplet untouched by me:

The Honey Wagon

Some say the custom cutters wheeled
and dealed at his expense.
Some say the aphids ate his yield
and call it negligence.
Some of the neighbors’ lips are sealed,
but folks with common sense
say you can’t fertilize a field
by farting through the fence.

[Jim Hayes]

Perhaps not quite up to the classics quoted above Tim, nevertheless, herwith my contribution;

Grandpa was a Hedgehog Breeder.

Grandpa got a notion once
to be a hedgehog breeder,
by raising herds our Grandpa said
he’d be the market leader.

One night he found a hedgehog,
the next night got another;
he’d serendipitously found
a father and a mother.

When they settled with their brood,
he happily averred,
that soon instead of two he’d have
a thriving hedgehog herd.

For a while our Grandpa,
nearly got it right,
but the hedgehogs’ progeny began
escaping in the night.

And made him put an end to his
entrepreneur’s pretentions—
all the roads around our house
paved with good intentions.

Jim

[Roger Slater]

Hot off the press, and made to order, I try my hand at the classic joke genre of poetry:


TALES FROM CAMELOT


The biggest thunderstorm in eighty years.
The winds lift giant trees out by the roots,
when at my gate Sir Lancelot appears,
the mud of tempests clinging to his boots,
and says, "Sirrah, I beg of you a horse."
I have no horse to give, and tell him so.
"Then lend me that big mutt. I've ridden worse."
His voice is desperate as the gale winds blow.

"But Lancelot, come in and dry your armor.
The rain, I fear, is turning into hail.
Depart tomorrow, when the weather's calmer.
If you go now, your mission's doomed to fail.
And yes, my friend, I would be quite remiss
to send a knight out on a dog like this."

[A. E. Stallings]

Ha! Bravo!

(But all of these are good...)

Not sure this counts, exactly, but it does end on a great punning punch-line. This from E. E. Cummings:

in heavenly realms of hellas dwelt


in heavenly realms of hellas dwelt
two very different sons of zeus:
one, handsome strong and born to dare
--a fighter to his eyelashes--
the other,cunning ugly lame;
but as you'll shortly comprehend
a marvellous artificer

now Ugly was the husband of
(as happens every now and then
upon a merely human plane)
someone completely beautiful;
and Beautiful,who(truth to sing)
could never quite tell right from wrong,
took brother Fearless by the eyes
and did the deed of joy with him

then Cunning forged a web so subtle
air is comparatively crude;
an indestructible occult
supersnare of resistless metal:
and(stealing toward the blissful pair)
skilfully wafted over them-
selves this implacable unthing

next,our illustrious scientist
petitions the celestial host
to scrutinize his handiwork:
they(summoned by that savage yell
from shining realms of regions dark)
laugh long at Beautiful and Brave
--wildly who rage,vainly who strive;
and being finally released
flee one another like the pest

thus did immortal jealousy
quell divine generosity,
thus reason vanquished instinct and
matter became the slave of mind;
thus virtue triumphed over vice
and beauty bowed to ugliness
and logic thwarted life:and thus--
but look around you,friends and foes

my tragic tale concludes herewith:
soldier,beware of mrs smith

[Tim Murphy]

The Cummings is brilliant, and so is the Slater! Roger, you might hate me for this, but I like this better than anything of yours I ever read. Comfort yourself, however. It took all my considerable powers of persuasion to dissuade Sam Gwynn from making the Pig my appearance in the Penguin Anthology of English Poetry. Here's another from VFN which I versified at my late father's request:

The Giving of Names

“Why is my elder brother named
Raven Overhead?”
A raven circled your mother
when she first came to my bed.

“Why is my elder sister named
Doe Leaps in the Mist?”
A deer passed in the morning
while your mother and I kissed.

“Why is my baby sister named
Star Sets to the West?”
The evening star was sinking
as I lay on your mother’s breast.

“How did you name your younger son?”
pestered the thumb-sucking
little brave his father called
Two Dogs Fucking.

(lines 3 and 4 in the first three quatrains are italicized.)

[nyctom]

I have no idea who wrote this. A friend of mine just sent it to me tonight and it cracked me up.


Many many years ago
When I was twenty three,
I got married to a widow
Who was pretty as could be.

This widow had a grown-up daughter
Who had hair of red.
My father fell in love with her,
And soon the two were wed.

This made my dad my son-in-law
And changed my very life.
My daughter was my mother,
For she was my father's wife.

To complicate the matters worse,
Although it brought me joy,
I soon became the father
Of a bouncing baby boy.

My little baby then became
A brother-in-law to dad.
And so became my uncle,
Though it made me very sad.

For if he was my uncle,
Then that also made him brother
To the widow's grown-up daughter
Who, of course, was my step-mother.

Father's wife then had a son,
Who kept them on the run.
And he became my grandson,
For he was my daughter's son.

My wife is now my mother's mother
And it makes me blue.
Because, although she is my wife,
She is my grandma too.

If my wife is my grandmother,
Then I am her grandchild.
And every time I think of it,
It simply drives me wild.

For now I have become
The strangest case you ever saw.
As the husband of my grandmother,
I am my own grandpa.

[Nigel Holt]

<u>Reverence</u>


‘What lovely flowers!’, Reverend Biggs exclaims,
strolling the park as summer flies away.
‘The pansies and geraniums are flames
of light and grace that limn a glorious day.’
When lo! An angel flits across the grass
and runs through beds of flowers, small dog by her side.
Her skin is alabaster, as smooth as glass,
so he hastens straight towards her with eager stride.

‘My lovely girl, what is your name?’, he asks,
‘It’s Petal’, she replies. ‘My mother dreamed
a flower when falling down from heaven, basks
in creation’s warmth, when once the lord has beamed.’
‘And your dog? What name has he?’, asks kind old Biggs.
‘Why, Porky Poker’, she says - as he fucks pigs.’