[Jerome Betts]

Cally and BJP, this was LOL for me at very tender age. (Genuine oral transmission via the old Lilliput.)

The thunder god went for a ride
Upon his favourite filly.
"I'm Thor!", he cried - the horse replied
"You forgot the thaddle, thilly!"

[Cally Conan-Davies]

Jerome!!!!!!!

I'm in stitches!!!!!! That's a rofl, not a lol!

Cally

[Steve Bucknell]

The Long Dark Corridor of Winter

A poem in the style of George Formby

It's dark!
It's long!
It's the long dark corridor of winter!

It's long!
It's dark!
It's the dark long corridor of winter!

After Christmas all you get
is freezing cold and soaking wet:
my Lancashire hot pot turns to ice
and missis, that's not very nice

Three months of underheated gloom
like laying out a corpse in a cold front room
tell me just tell me what I can do
when me ukelele's turning blue!

It's dark!
It's long!
It's the long dark corridor of winter!

It's long!
It's dark!
It's the dark long corridor of winter!

I'm from Lancashire not Finland
but I feel like an Arctic bloke
when you have to thaw your breath out to see what you're saying
it really is no joke!

Dark in the morning, dark at night
ghostly mills in ghostly light
I'm not feeling very bright
when winter grips me pencil tight!

It's dark!
It's long!
It's the long dark corridor of winter!

It's long!
It's dark!
It's the dark long corridor of winter!

Ian McMillan. I Found This Shirt. Carcanet.1998.

[Cally Conan-Davies]

Laughing again! (god - I'm faithless to my feelings!)

Thanks for bucking me up, Bucks!

[Holly Martins]

Spike Milligan was very good at the parody that plunges sharply in tone:

I must go down to the sea again,
to the lonely sea and the sky,
I left my vest and socks there,
I wonder if they're dry?


The boy stood on the burning deck
whence all but he had fled:- the twit!

[Andrew Frisardi]

I just realized I didn't really answer Maryann's question.

The thing about laugh-out-loud funny is it depends so much on mood and surprise. I did laugh out loud the first time I read "evacuate with us" in that poem, but not the second time. After the first time the funny part was more remembering how funny it was the first time. I was in the right mood the first time, plus the phrase surprised me. A lot of light or humorous verse, like a lot of poetry in general, lacks surprise--an unexpected turn of wit or language. So even if it's chuckle material it's not really laugh-out-loud material.

[Steve Bucknell]

I can’t resist a little Lister:

Postscript to
Die Schone Muller.

The freshet springs from woodland cleft,
Its waters crystal clear and cool;
The lovesick youth, of sense bereft,
Leaps madly in the swirling pool.

Quelled are his turbulence and woe
Who loved the miller’s daughter;
And in the village far below
They take to filtering the water.

[Maryann Corbett]

Thanks for these great contributions--a great start to my morning.

But I have to make a terrible confession: I don't get the McMillan "Meaning of Life." I know it will be like cutting up a living thing to explain to me how it's funny, but perhaps somebody's willing.