[Max Goodman]

Originally Posted by Lance Levens

My money's on Max's Marceau

Though this is clearly only a typo, to prevent anyone skimming quickly from mistaking: the Marceau is George's.

The baseball poem has some good laughs, Lance. Probably too American, though, and certainly too long, according to the contest rules.

[John Whitworth]

Well, if it's rudery you're after, what about the first line of a poem by William Allingham?

Four ducks on a pond

One has to presuppose a boat of some sort.

[Lance Levens]

My apologies, George and Max. And thanks, Max, for the kind words about the Waller. I've always wanted to do a send-up of that poem.

[Roger Slater]

The winners have already been posted by others, but I can't stop:

Donut go gentle into that good night.
Your calories are empty, but today
I am resolved at last to eating right.

Though mothers tell me, "Go on, have a bite,"
I tell them, "Don't you know how much I weigh?"
Donut go gentle into that good night.

Would I enjoy a carrot? I just might.
They're quite nutritious, weight-loss doctors say.
I am resolved at last to eating right.

But you, my poison, keep out of my sight!
Turn on your side and roll right off my tray!
Donut go gentle into that good night.
I am resolved at last to eating right.

[Max Goodman]

This time you beat me to the post, Bob. (And made mine hardly worth posting, but I can't stop either.)


Do now go gentle into that good night;
You've hung around here long enough, all right?

[Max Goodman]

Did someone say rudery?

This must have done it before. It appears to be the title of a porn film, but that film gets too many web hits for me to easily determine whether it's been done as a poem.


How do I love thee? Let me count the lays.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
That I can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being--or of, at least, thy stays,

By sun and candle-light, and in the dark,
Face down, face up, as well as all the rest
Of the positions, naked, fully dressed,
And when thou're wearing my clothes for a lark,

On lawns, on desks, on tables where we've fed,
In bath-tubs, coaches, closets, and on floors,
On window sills and up against broad doors,
In hallways and occasionally in bed.

And if thou choose, the next time I come by,
I've thought of something else that we can try.

[Roger Slater]

(Grasshopper and the Cricket -- Keats)

The poetry of earth is never read.
Even poets do not read it much.
The love of reading poetry is dead.
Is it poets who have lost the touch
or is it that society has altered?
Should we be bothered no one reads the stuff?
Has something in our evolution faltered
or is it just that we have had enough
and now the world has other arts to please us,
cyber-arts, perhaps, to claim our passion?
Farewell to William Shakespeare and to Jesus?
I swear we have not changed. It's merely fashion.

[Lance Levens]

You two guys need to take this on the road. Donut, go gentle...--genius, Roger.

[Roger Slater]

(Spring -- Gerard Manley Hopkins)

Nothing is so beautiful as string --
Just ask a cat for whom a dangled thread
So twitchingly entices overhead
Like heaven drooping down low orbiting;
Or bakers who vouchsafe their pies inside
Flimsy cardboard boxes whose loose flaps
Would open up and crumb-bombard our laps
Were it not for the string with which they're tied.
Wound in balls, knotted, looped or tangled,
Strapped to kites or keeping rolled things rolled,
It wants for edges yet it's many-angled;
And now -- to think!-- all matter is controlled
And made from tiny strings that are so small
That they themselves may not exist at all!

[Chris O'Carroll]

Least likely to win (hell, least likely to be submitted), but most fun to compose:

Twat the night before Christmas, when all through the house
She yanked down my pants and I tore off her blouse.
Our undies we flung on the floor with no care
For tidy decor; we just had to be bare.

The children were sleeping, but we were awake,
And holiday whoopee’s what we chose to make.
She sugared my plums (she’s the queen of good head)
And I made her exclaim on the floor and the bed.

Had a jolly old elf and his eight-reindeer crew
Arrived on the roof in the midst of our screw,
It’s likely that we would have paid them no heed;
We were both getting all of the presents we need.

On Comet! On Cupid! On Dasher and Dancer!
Each of us is the other one’s horny romancer.
There’s one thing more sweet than a sweet Christmas cookie --
I’m speaking, of course, of sweet Christmas Eve nookie.