[John Isbell]

Possibly the shortest poem ever written was variously attributed, including to Ogden Nash, and it's on fleas:

Adam
Had 'em.

Cheers,
John

Dorothy Parker wrote several short and pointed poems, such as

Men seldom make passes
At girls who wear glasses.

And there are also all the Burma-Shave ditties from the 1930s, which have their place in American history: http://thewhynot100.blogspot.com/201...ave-signs.html

[Roger Slater]

I think the shortest is:

I,
why?

I'm not sure, but I think it's by Eli Siegel?

And Ogden Nash:

Further Reflections on Parsley

Parsley
Is gharsley.

My own shortest, I think, is eight words long, a tiny quatrain with abab rhymes. It was in Light Quarterly, in its paper days.

[John Isbell]

"Why I" is the standard greeting in County Durham, in the North of England, for reasons I've never been able to fathom. It's nice though. I like those two poems, Roger, and am reminded that Clerihews have their place in this collection:

Alfred de Musset
Used to call his cat, pusset.
His accent was affected.
This was only to be expected.

And along the lines of why I are these two limericks:

There once was a man who said "God
must find it exceedingly odd
To think that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the quad.

That appeared in the Spectator and was followed a week later by this:

Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd;
I am always about in the quad.
And that's why this tree
Continues to be,
Since observed by, Yours faithfully, God.

I particularly like that Yours faithfully is the correct salutation for Dear Sir.

Cheers,
John

Oh - I once invented a form called six-word verticals, consisting of six words laid out vertically, which I can't post here because we're in General Talk.

[Joe Crocker]

There is a story that John Cooper Clark having finished his set, left the stage to return shortly, greeted by enthusiastic clapping, shouting and stamping. He gave his cheering audience a line from Dylan Thomas

“Do not go mental. And with that – Good Night!”

[Julie Steiner]

Here's a previous celebration of short poems (defined differently) on the Musing on Mastery board:
https://www.ablemuse.com/erato/showthread.php?t=374

Here's one of my favorites from that thread. I grew up milking dairy goats by hand in the grim pre-dawn light, before running to catch the school bus with alfalfa hay in my hair. I don't miss that life one bit.

Carnation Milk is the best in the land;
I've got a can of it here in my hand--
No teats to pull, no hay to pitch,
You just punch a hole in the sonofabitch.

--Anonymous

[Damian Balassone]

Thanks all for these wonderful suggestions. Some absolute pearlers. I especially love the Byron clerihew and the milking quatrain from Julie.

I had already included some of the other suggestions, but certainly have lots of others worth adding to the page now. Any others? Please let me know. I’m a sucker for the short form.

[Martin Elster]

Fuzzy Fuzzy was a bear.
Fuzzy Fuzzy had no hair.
Fuzzy Fuzzy wasn’t fuzzy, was he?
No, he was a bare bear.

[Maryann Corbett]

Some of the posts above have called to my mind this gem by Roy Blount, Jr.:

The local groceries are all out of broccoli,
Loccoli.

I didn't find this on an "authorized" site, and it may not be the correct form, but it's been planted in my brain for years. He probably has written others like it.

[Chris O'Carroll]

On Having Mis-identified A Wild Flower

A thrush, because I'd been wrong,
burst rightly into song
In a world not vague, not lonely,
Not governed by me only.

Richard Wilbur


mr u will not be missed
who as an anthologist
sold the many on the few
not excluding mr u

E.E. Cummings (writing about Louis Untermeyer)


The Span of Life

The old dog barks backwards without getting up.
I can remember when he was a pup.

Robert Frost

[Maryann Corbett]

I've just now seen this on Twitter, attributed to Thom Gunn:

Jamesian

Their relationship consisted
In discussing if it existed.

And while I'm at it, here's a link to another old thread that contains poems in eleven lines or fewer.