[Aaron Novick]

I'm not the Aaron you mean, but still, bravo.

(Your poem that got bottom-of-the-paged is pretty good, too. But the Herpes poem is my favorite of the thread thus far.)

[Ann Drysdale]

Why, thank you, other-Aaron! What a joy
To be thus praised by a well-mannered boy.
But honesty demands you should be told -
Archaic verse comes easy to the old.

[Aaron Novick]

Indeed, for as the old trope sayeth,
Elder and child are akin.
The old, whose hairs make flee and grayeth,
Is aged, of an other age,
And finds the new speak too new-fangled
To pierce her wrinkled, leather skin.
Meanwhile, alas, the child is strangled
By words already put to page,
And, imitating long-dead Bards,
The Sphere with oldish tripe bombards.

[Aaron Novick]

I fear that poem may lose me the epithet "well-mannered", though.

[Ann Drysdale]

Lovely boy, be not afraid
Thou may'st keep thine accolade.
Thy gentle gibes do not begin
To penetrate my leather skin
For, in the way of ancient biddies,
I'm far too busy strangling kiddies...

[Aaron Poochigian]

Ah, I'm in heaven--this thread has taken a turn toward herpes and child-strangling.

Ann, "facehole" is divine. Do you know the American idiom for kissing--"sucking face"?

Ann, I'm just glad that you wrote "kiddies" instead of "kitties."

[Aaron Poochigian]

We are getting some good stuff on this thread.

Aaron N.: "the child is strangled/by words already put to page"

Ann: "evil cherry"

Woohoo.

[RCL]

Then owls and bats,
Cowls and twats,
Monks and nuns in cloister’s moods,
Adjourn to the oak-stump pantry.

Browning, from Pippa Passes


The Poet Who Mistook His Hat for a Twat

Some balding nuns, their duties shirkin’,
Learned about the perfect merkin
When reading rhymes with wording quaint
(But no allusions to a saint)
That made them restless on their cots:
The poet traded hats for twats.

[Aaron Poochigian]

Ralph, you have pushed this thread to a whole new level. Thank you. It is unfortunate that, in a recent discussion of Pippa Passes on the Metrical Board, those lines were not quoted.

Thanks for your poem.