[Brian Allgar]

Said Pat Myers, “Now who is this toff
Who fills with ‘excreta ’ his trough?
I’m willing to betcher he
Next writes of lechery ...
Bingo! So all Betts are off.”

[John Whitworth]

And here is my chaste muse.


My poetry's all Esperanto.
Pray listen! I'll give you a canto.
According to some
it's a pain in the bum,
But to me it's as good as a panto.

[Roger Slater]

Originally Posted by Jerome Betts

So is this clean enough?

Towns today smell a little bit sweeter
Than those of the past with a fetor
Due to privies or closets
Full of unflushed deposits
Of that troublesome product, excreta.

Or this?

An artist whose forte was sketching
Any scene that would make a good etching
Said, "I'm saddened to find
In the popular mind
My prints are a prelude to leching."

Two winners for sure!

[Jerome Betts]

Thanks, Roger! Was surprised to find 'fetor' is the same in both our countries. I'd suspected, before a COD check, we spelt (or spelled) it 'foetor'. You live and learn.

John, you prompt the question whether Esperanto lends itself to verse and whether anyone has actually produced any.

Not sure I agree that there are very few memorable limericks that aren't filthy. The ones that pop up in my mind in the small hours are anodyne golden oldies like

There once was a plesiosaurus
Who lived when the earth was all porous
But it fainted with shame
When it first heard its name
And departed long ages before us.

Or

There was an old man of Peru
Who found he had nothing to do
So he sat on the stairs
And counted his hairs
And found he had seventy-two.

As for the algarythm . . . we shall see.

[John Whitworth]

Indeed there is a sizeable corpus of work in Esperanto. There laureate, as it were, is a chap called William Auld. It's a bit like writing poetry in Lallans, a language no-one speaks or ever has spoken, or Cornish. Is there Cornish poetry? A REALLY Borges-like project would be to invent a language out of nothing, publish a dictionary, and then write the poetry. There ought to be an Arts-Council grant for that one - except that it would require considerable labour, and not a little intelligence, which rather puts it out of court as an Arts project.

Here is a poem by Zamenhof, the inventor of Esperanto.

Ho, mia kor', ne batu maltrankvile,
El mia brusto nun ne saltu for!
Jam teni min ne povas mi facile,
Ho, mia kor'!

Ho, mia kor'! Post longa laborado
Ĉu mi ne venkos en decida hor'?
Sufiĉe! trankviliĝu de l' batado,
Ho, mia kor'!

Esperanto, as you can see, is not produced arbitrarilly out of nothing. Indeed I can almost understand this without the crib which you can find on the internet.

[Max Goodman]

I think this one is by John Ciardi. Hard to beat for lims based on words in this alphabetical range:

There was a young man with a rod
Who thought he'd been chosen by G-d
To exercise hell
From the girls. He meant well,
But the thunder said, "Exorcise, clod!"

[Jerome Betts]

John, it does almost deviate into sense, no doubt because of the Latin/Romance roots which make Esperanto seem a bit unfair to learners from other language families.

Cornish is a bit opaquer, though:

An lavar coth yu lavar gwyr
Byth dorn re ver dhe'n tavas re hyr,
Mes den hep tavas a-gollas y dyr.

As for the Borges-like project, haven't the trekkies already done something like this with Klingon?

[Brian Allgar]

Tolkien, of course, invented not one but several languages, and 'The Lord of the Rings' contains poems in Elvish (which are rather beautiful), in the hideous Black Speech of Mordor, and possibly others that I have forgotten. I don't know whether he actually produced a dictionary, but the languages are described in great detail, and are very convincing.

[John Whitworth]

Is there Klingon poetry, Jerome? I'll look it up. I have done so. I fear it fails to grip. This one is about books.

jIH paqmey bang

chaH Depmey ‘et yIn

Hovvam pov

jevam vaj Hu’

ghorgh SIS je peD pum

joq ghorgh getlhpagh langbe’

eg je ghorgh chaH pa’vaj

[Brian Allgar]

Originally Posted by Jerome Betts

As for the algarythm . . . we shall see.

Oddly enough, Jerome, when I was looking for a name for my computer company*, a friend suggested 'Allgarithms', although I didn't use it. (He also suggested 'Debuggers', but I didn't use that one either.)

* That makes it sound rather grander than it is. Actually, it's a one-man consulting company in which I am director, sole employee, and general dogsbody. What's more, my f***ing boss won't give me a pay-rise.

Here's where the prudish should leave. You have been warned.


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

Roger, do you think this one would get through?

“My sex life is over!” cries Dobson,
Distraught, as my shoulder he sobs on.
“My splendid tumescence is
Marred by excrescences -
Who’d suck a knob that has knobs on?”