OK--take your parting shot at the dead--no requirement that they've gotten there yet.

Epitaph on a Torrent

To GWB (junior)

He loved his quickies and Elba toast,
But Seizure salads were Cheyney's boast.


Whoops! Not Liebermann - wrong ticket. But, in my defence, when were VP's ever notable?



[This message has been edited by Nigel Holt (edited May 21, 2001).]

These are a few of my oldest stabs at short light verse:

Advance Planning


I

Though mocked and hounded all their lives,
Nobody doubts their bond survives.
So here they rest, beyond their troubles,
Michael Jackson and faithful Bubbles.

II

May God accept Madonna, who
Has some explaining she must do.

III

God's humble servant, Edward Koch, lies here.
At least now how he's doin' should be clear.

IV

Although they died before their times,
Dear Lord, absolve them of their crimes
And bless, in spite of disco's evil,
Your sons The Village People.

V

Within this hallowed earth
Lies one who knew its worth
But felt its price would jump
Once graced by Donald Trump.


And from the tradition, a few years back I translated this from Boileau:

Epitaph of Mr. ....

Properly mourned, here you will find:
A know-it-all with no degree;
A blueblood with no pedigree;
A man quite decent, yet unkind.

Epitaphe de M. De....

Ci-git, justement regrette,
Un savant homme sans science,
Un gentilhomme sans naissance,
Un tres bon homme sans bonte.

Epitath? I assume that's a cross between an epitaph and an epithet, so here goes:

He liked to say he’d tried his best;
I hope his soul has earned its rest,
for while he tried a lot of stuff
his best was never good enough.

Carol

Or maybe this?


He always got the final word.
A pity that he never heard
The warning shout before the blow
because he kept on talking. So
now that he’s silently interred,
his tombstone reads, “Look out below!”


Carol

Carol: Yup, you caught me in a brain freeze. I fixed the text but I'm clueless as to how to fix the title...If you can fix it, please be my guest.

It's fixed, but couldn't we could coin the word Epithats?

Carol

Couldn't resist this. Unfortunately, I can't think whom these lines are meant to attack -- any suggestions?

Here lies Yvette, whose pheromones
Would resurrect the oldest bones.
When called by profits, she undressed
And firmly laid those bones to rest.


And here the Arrow Collar Man lies buried,
Despite a thousand offers, still unmarried.
Ladies, don’t tear your hair and wonder “how?”
You’ve got a better chance to rouse him now.


I hope the following trick with punctuation works and that this makes sense:

In case you're curious, this fossil is
Father of scalene and isosceles.
We're told he looked on Beauty, bare--
thus giving Beauty quite a scare.

(I hope it'll be clear that EUCLID was bare when he looked on Beauty.)



[This message has been edited by ChrisW (edited May 22, 2001).]

God forgive your departed servant,
condescending and pompous and arrogant.
And help the rest of us that we might
forgive him the sin of being right.

Carol

Love the idea, but thought I'd nudge the rhythm a bit; hope you don't mind.


God, forgive your servant--insolent,
condescending, pompous, arrogant.
And help the rest of us so that we might
forgive him for the sin of being right.


Cheers,
Jan

Here lies the PTL's Jim Bakker.
Since "God don't want no trash,"
We can't help thinking that his Maker
Has flamed his soul to ash.


Howard

For Douglas Adams:

He's gone - why did he have to go, damn it,
when he had the brain the size of a planet.


So long and thanks for all the fish...

Epitaph for a Modest Soul

Fee fie foe fum
So my time to go has come.
Foe fum fee fie
Comes a time we all must die.
Fie foe fum fee
Sighs the world a sigh for me?
Fum fee fie foe
It hardly notices I go.


Jan

I'm on a roll, killing off all the irksome people I know!


She had the most exhaustive store
of where she’d been and what she knew.
On any subject she understood more;
she’d been there, done that ahead of you.
I imagine she’s been to Hell before
and is telling Lucifer what to do.


Carol

That last one might be the best so far, Carol! Very funny! (Liked the one before that too.)

The following bit of doggerel isn't exactly an epitaph (unless it's an epitaph for aesthetic judgement), but maybe I can sneak it in here:

Footnote to a Nightingale:

Keats filled you in on leaden-eyed despairs
Fever, palsy and frets, but never said
How Vanity saves a few sad, long, grey hairs
And pastes them across the head.


[This message has been edited by ChrisW (edited May 22, 2001).]

-My Dad`s not here-
(A golfer never happier nor drunker)
His ashes are in a bunker

Although I had no gift for sports,
he made me shiver in my shorts
through rain and hail and sleet and snow,
berating me for being slow.
Now Mr. Dicker's good and dead,
I come to damn the bullethead
to some dark Hell wherein, for all
eternity, a rugby ball
smacks endlessly against his wet
and goosebumped thighs. I don't forget.

Bravo, Clive! No doubt you know the saying "those who can, do; those who can't, teach, and those who can't teach, teach gym." But I've often thought that it isn't failed teachers who end up teaching gym -- it's the failed fascist dictators. (Let me add that I had a very decent and intelligent gym teacher once.)
I hope it's OK if I contribute yet another epitaph:

Here lies the corpse of Jimmy Swaggart,
Food for bacterium and maggot
He hoped to be reborn again
And use some tart as porn again.




[This message has been edited by ChrisW (edited May 23, 2001).]

They had to hire a JCB,
this plot's so wide and long.
For here lies every single man
who ever did me wrong.

***

Here lies Bakker, Tammy Faye.
Don't laugh - she chose to look that way.

Here lies kooky Ronny Reagan,
(although weird no space alien),
one of GOP's great social climbers,
much improved by his Alzheimer's.

"The Most Powerful Man"

A klieg behind a gnat whose shadow's wingspan
Appalls the earth: here lies one Alan Greenspan.

"For a Mass Grave in the Mojave Desert"

The BeeGees by themselves once ruined Rock:
Here lies, of their rebirth, the deejay flock.

"V is for Victory"

After his death, revisionists put the fix in--
But those who saw his knavery, still curse Nixon.

Here should lie young Tim McVeigh,
Who G-men helped to get away.

Any Sailor

Born of sea in ancient past
his blood still knows her tang,
so when his breath is still at last
and the funeral bells are rang
let his ashes feed the sea,
and save more land for me.



[This message has been edited by Mikel (edited May 26, 2001).]

To William Jefferson Clinton, musician

In office he loved his saxaphone solo,
and brash harmonica with pink oboe.

To Ronald Reagan

O last of McCarthyite creatures!
O fan of the televised preachers!
O Actor of Wood!
Did we think you'd be good--
Or just long for those old double features?

Cantos, Can't Sing, Can't Dance

Below lies Ezra, long since dead,
his poems pounded in my head.
Were he alive, he wouldn't deign
to even bother with my name --
unless I spoke cinq langues to him
inside a sanatorium.


Rachel

[This message has been edited by Rachel (edited July 26, 2001).]

Michael..I loved Advance Planning...Very creative..

Rachel..This was fantastic!!

Here lies Thomas in the bleakest rough;
I thought he was made of sterner stuff.
He didn't go for a month or two,
and then so rudely forced tereu.

Dog Days

Within this shoebox, Lassie lies, une chienne deluxe;
her vice proved her undoing: chasing garbage trucks.

Rachel

Allez vite,
Ce n'est pas Magritte.

Poor Ted Kennedy loved Glenfiddich,
but it cost him more than Chappaquidic.

A poet lies here-- tread softly, birds.
He'll resurrect to give you words.

God lies here, our saving lamb.
The one who said I am who am
is now a mound of putrid fuzz.
He am no am, he am who was.

In this fresh grave lies Britney Spears,
the idol of so many steers.
Her hymen fixed up by the surgeon,
the bat claimed she was always virgin.

Her rotten voice would always croak.
She'd stomp and scream to show some bloke
that keeping virtue was her pain.
Oops! I think I said it again.



------------------
--

Svein Olav
http://nonserviam.com/solan/

Here lies Mary Queen of Scots,
hothead redhead, dead;
a redneck too, at least she was
when we'd chopped off her head.

Porridginal



[This message has been edited by Porridgeface (edited July 13, 2001).]

He claimed he'd found the Holy Grail
from which to savor art.
His leaky verse was doomed to fail
for all that he might rant and rail--
Like him, it's gone beyond the pale
and no one gives a fart.

Carol

Here by the request of his spouse
Is carved a verse for Mickey Mouse;
His ears were floppy and black,
But he was a demon in the sack.

Composed by me, James Elroy Flecker
(A.K.A Woody Woodpecker)

Here lies the body of Albert Gore,
(Well most of it - there may be more),
two legs were lost (and some arms),
an index finger and several palms.
Where did they go? You may well ask,
for in this last post mortem task,
they left it to an old mortician
- a "Floridan" - and quite patrician.
He never really learned his math;
Jeb, the Texan psychopath.

This is one the Susquehanna Quarterly published for me

Here lies Johnny Murphy
who was always laid back
smoking marijuana,
cocaine and crack.

He lies in this graveyard
alack and alas;
with a stone at his head
that says "Keep Off The Grass"

Jim