Duelling doggerel!

I like to write that rhymin' stuff
I write it day and night
But you get to feel you've had enough
When it just won't come out right
This is my lunchtime
Having a break
Before I eat my fruit
I enjoy munch-time
Eating cake
And dumplings made of suet.

But mini-me becomes gross and glum
If I indulge that habit
So to keep these pounds from off my tum
I nibble like a rabbit.

(just something I thought of)

Those in power today seem to be fated
To be either very loved or very hated

Some thought Clinton a total cad
While others thought him the best we had

President Bush is thought by some to be divinely chosen for this time
While others feel that he is lower than slime

If only we would could see
That our leaders are as you and me

Our leaders are not God's in disguise
They can be both foolish and wise

If we can keep in our minds
This little rhyme

Perhaps we would not tear down in our zeal for change
Those characteristics that keep us humane

A rhyme sublime
To pass the time
The sunshine's here
It's cold, but clear
No excuses then
To leave undone
The chores that ought
Be done, and bought
The groceries must
Be soon, and so
Its ever onward
I must go

Il m'est très difficile
De rimer en anglais
J'aimerais en être habile
Mais je le fais sans succès.

J'aimerais faire un poème
Aussi bon que tous les vôtres
C'est toujours un problème
Je ne suis pas bon apôtre.

Je le tente vainement
M'essayant à tous les mots
J'y arrive pauvrement
Mais cela sonne un peu faux

Mais qu'est-ce que c'est que ce délire
Dans la langue de Shakespeare?

My sympathies go out to Francis
As 'round with English words he dances.
Myself, I'd find it quite austere
To try and write like, say, Moliére.
But put a feather in his bonnet
For a lovely Gallic sonnet.

Autumn's sprung, the leaves are brown,
They've spread themselves all over town.
(Well, actually, I fib a bit -
There's just a few to whirl and flit)
When I arise, it's darkness still,
At least the birds don't sing so shrill...
(The little bastards love to spoil
My summer sleep - it makes me boil!)
The days are clear, the nights are cool -
I'm sleeping well, my snores are full.
(I chatter, too - it seems, in sleep -
And babble forth my secrets deep.
My partner says it's like a play -
A never-ending roundelay.)

Autumn's sprung, the leaves are brown
(Not here - here the snows've come down --
They've spread themselves all over town).

When I arise, it's darkness still
(Until I ope my eyes, and it's five until
noon...
At least the birds don't sing so shrill --
Or at all. They're down in Louisville.)

These days are clear, the nights are cool -
(Cool? Iced up! The stars think I'm a frozen fool.)
Deb's sleeping well, her snores are full
(She sleeps down there in down-under wool,
Where I cannae here her drool...)

Yon Puppy's said I snore and drool!
Yon Puppy's more than passing cruel!
While I admit I snore a bit,
I never drool! Yon Pup's a fool!

Yon Puppy, though he's been quite mean,
Yon Puppy's now a sight not seen,
So, though he's cruel, and speaks of drool,
I greet yon Pup with happy mien!


PATIO!!!!!

Only a fool
would dare to drool
in my town
where the snow comes down
in billows and billows
as I lie on my pillow,
taking my ease.
If I drooled the stuff'd freeze.

We've bright sun here, I'm glad to say
The cold white stuff has gone away
Though warmer much I think it's not
Look forward to when it gets hot

And when in autumn's sweltering heat
With sweaty pits and throbbing feet
We look back, rueing one more time
We ever cursed our changing clime.

Blame air-conditioning, habit-forming
A major cause of global warming?

Warmer in, colder out,
Crusty oozes in the snout
Swelt'ring heat, Sahara dry
Thermostat is too damn high
















(ok, doggerel it ain't)

winter sucks, I'm sad to say
winter sucks in a bad bad way
the illnesses come one after the other
if it ain't a sick kid it's a sick mother
the sun seems warm, but it's all a ruse
if it's below 30 again I'll blow a fuse
my skin's absorbed gallons of lotion
oh, to stretch out next to the ocean
I don't really believe that spring's almost here
it's gonna be cold for a whole 'nother year

winter sucks, I'm sad to say
winter sucks in a bad bad way.

almost equinoxical
this damn cold's paradoxical
will there be vernal ice fishin'?
Ma Nature, fulfill my summer wishin'
and send me a week of heat,
growing wheat, bare feet, summer sausage meat
and a year of warmer days
so I can go outside and play.
soz is right, I'm sad to say
winter sucks in a bad, bad, bad, bad way.

Y'all don't like winter? Shame on you.
To change your attitude, here's one I wrote a little earlier.....

Ode to the Northeast Wind


Welcome, wild Northeaster!
Shame it is to see
Odes to every zephyr;
Ne'er a verse to thee.
Welcome, black Northeaster!
O'er the German foam;
O'er the Danish moorlands,
From thy frozen home.
Tired are we of summer,
Tired of gaudy glare,
Showers soft and steaming,
Hot and breathless air.
Tired of listless dreaming,
Through the lazy day--
Jovial wind of winter
Turn us out to play!
Sweep the golden reed-beds;
Crisp the lazy dike;
Hunger into madness
Every plunging pike.
Fill the lake with wild fowl;
Fill the marsh with snipe;
While on dreary moorlands
Lonely curlew pipe.
Through the black fir-forest
Thunder harsh and dry,
Shattering down the snowflakes
Off the curdled sky.
Hark! The brave Northeaster!
Breast-high lies the scent,
On by holt and headland,
Over heath and bent.
Chime, ye dappled darlings,
Through the sleet and snow.
Who can override you?
Let the horses go!
Chime, ye dappled darlings,
Down the roaring blast;
You shall see a fox die
Ere an hour be past.
Go! and rest tomorrow,
Hunting in your dreams,
While our skates are ringing
O'er the frozen streams.
Let the luscious Southwind
Breathe in lovers' sighs,
While the lazy gallants
Bask in ladies' eyes.
What does he but soften
Heart alike and pen?
'Tis the hard gray weather
Breeds hard English men.
What's the soft Southwester?
'Tis the ladies' breeze,
Bringing home their trueloves
Out of all the seas.
But the black Northeaster,
Through the snowstorm hurled,
Drives our English hearts of oak
Seaward round the world.
Come, as came our fathers,
Heralded by thee,
Conquering from the eastward,
Lords by land and sea.
Come; and strong, within us
Stir the Vikings' blood;
Bracing brain and sinew;
Blow, thou wind of God!


Angus "Tag" McTag

Winter's good for thinner blood
Kills mosquitoes, freezes mud
Makes you feel that's something good's
Just around the corner, bud.

(changing my style from my last verse)

Snowdrops, daffodils, crocus too
Nature has bestowed on you
Birds are nesting two by two
Or three if one of them's cuckoo

(That ain't doggerel! Nice one.)

Winter is just fine at the beginning
The first white blanket is quite winning
We're plenty tough, we strike a pose
Cold, wind, ice, we don't mind those
But then it won't stop! It goes on and on!
Ruthless as a horde of Satan's spawn!
Teeth chatter, noses run, bodies shiver,
Heating bills mount as skin withers.
If it were brief, we'd laugh, we'd scoff
But it on it goes as we hack and cough.

Winter's fine, if it ends soon
I only fear it'll go 'til June.

The doggerel is no longer a-dueling?
Was versifying deemed to a-grueling?
I say, there's not a line must scan
All you've got to do is do what you can
To make the end-feet rhyme
And come by to retort from time to time.

The pup has made a good point.
Sometimes we try too damn hard
To sound just like a bard
With scansion and meter
To sound sweeter and sweeter
When, in fact, all that matters is that we find a rhyme
In time
To rhyme with -- what the hell rhymes with 'point'?

You are right! O friends of the ether
My verse was neither
One thing or the other
I looked up doggerel
In a big, two-volume, swell
Dictionary that once belonged to my dad
And boy, was I glad
In there, it said

"An epithet applied to
Burlesque verse of
Irregular rhythm; or to mean
Trivial, or undignified verse."

Well whathtfa, or worse, I thought
My verses scan, and they didn't ought
More undignity is called for here
Irregularity, and burlesque even
So before thinking of leavin'
Write a few trivia
What hiv' ya
And see if that passes the doggerel test
Among the rest

'Tis hard to make your verses sag
When you're a good rhymer like McTag.