Comments by qms

  • Though demons possess our great nation

    They’ll flee from the right exsufflation.

    An exorcist’s puff

    May well be enough

    To drive out the orange abomination.

    May 30, 2019

  • There once was a crank named O’Reilly

    Who lived life medieval entirely.

    He slept with his dogs,

    Wore archaic togs,

    And washed with an aquamanile.

    May 30, 2019

  • For decades ambitions deceive us

    Till dotage, when vain dreams will leave us,

    But one shining goal

    We may still control:

    Becoming revered and longevous.

    May 30, 2019

  • She thought she could star if she tried

    And see her name shining worldwide

    But her star, though bright

    Only flickered a night

    A striking but short-lived bolide.

    May 30, 2019

  • Some girls become addled in pubescence

    And boy bands preside in their adolescence.

    As parents try harder

    To dampen their ardor

    The girls just become incalescent.

    May 30, 2019

  • The butcher, his kith and his kin,

    Know pigs both outside and in.

    To please and to nourish

    They carve with a flourish

    And banish each bothersome griskin.

    May 29, 2019

  • The king said, “Let my subjects be mustered.”

    When no one showed up he was flustered

    He asked where the rabble went,

    Their smells and their babblement -

    The deaf wizard had turned them to mustard.

    May 29, 2019

  • If a baker’s to be efficacious

    He must be both strong and tenacious.

    Puff pastry’s a test

    To challenge the best

    To roll the dough out till chartaceous.

    May 15, 2019

  • Responding to bilby’s request at help and lost-for-word. See also improworsement.

    May 14, 2019

  • A scale in the bathroom can’t harm me.

    To scale a small mountain would charm me.

    But I get the heebie-jeebies

    When I think of urosteges,

    For scales on a snake do alarm me.

    May 14, 2019

  • When the boy first slogged in the bog

    He stirred all the frogs quite agog.

    ‘Twas a danger mistook:

    The boy sought the brook

    To hunt only eels with his brog.

    May 14, 2019

  • At times you accept, not assent,

    For chemo is always unpleasant:

    A body too thin,

    A rash on your skin,

    A noggin that’s growing glabrescent.

    May 12, 2019

  • Just why they’re kept rolled I don’t know

    It makes their perusal so slow.

    The style of their storing

    May mean they’re thought boring

    For scholars composed makimono.

    May 11, 2019

  • Joe Biden is known for his rectitude

    The goblin is famed for ineptitude;

    But values aside

    The folk will decide

    Which man is less sunk in senectitude.

    May 10, 2019

  • If calmness is hard, then affect it,

    With practice you may well perfect it.

    Though news, deeply felt,

    May tempt you to melt,

    Stay cool and be less eutectic.

    May 9, 2019

  • The Christians stealthily slipped

    To depths of the old Roman crypt.

    By flickering flambeau

    Heard words from the ambo,

    Piously ate and reverently sipped.

    May 8, 2019

  • The Donald has no geostrategy.

    I wonder just what could the matter be?

    Indifferent to ends,

    He takes for his friends

    Those specially generous in flattery.

    May 7, 2019

  • Old Greeks in theatrical pieces

    Might call a set discourse a rhesis.

    But now it sounds funky -

    A name for a monkey -

    So use of the term today ceases.

    May 6, 2019

  • It‘s helpful to know where you are,

    For Wordnik does set a high bar.

    Pentalpha’s preferred

    To a humbler word

    Like everyone’s simply drawn star.

    May 5, 2019

  • Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of the Andals and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons is a hot chick in many ways. She’s on a campaign to take the iron throne which she believes to be hers by right. She’s killing a lot of people along the way. Her most extravagant weapons are the three dragons she hatched from ancient eggs and raised as her “children.” They breathe fire, as dragons are wont to do, and do it with particular relish on the armies of their mother’s foes.

    We are only into season three of a saga now in its eighth and final season, so I can’t tell you more about how Daenerys fares.

    To the world at large: no spoilers please!

    May 4, 2019

  • Daenerys will never her quest abate

    While enemies still are left to hate.

    Who earns that queen’s ire

    Will face dragon fire

    And watch whole battalions deflagrate.

    Note: The reference is to Game of Thrones which my wife and I have just started binge watching. Since I assume we are the last two people on the planet to see this program I will omit further explanation.

    May 4, 2019

  • I can’t say I’m really appalled

    To find myself skinny and bald.

    I hardly could care less

    I’m pallid and hairless -

    It puts off the day that I’m called.

    May 4, 2019

  • Zuzu, your presence here enriches us all.

    May 4, 2019

  • A word of great current interest. See William Barr’s Testimony, and Reasons to Be Snitty by Amy Davis Sorkin

    https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/william-barrs-testimony-and-reasons-to-be-snitty

    Note especially:

    Calling people “snitty” is a way of accusing them of being weak, mewling, and rule-bound, with a pathetic belief in fairness. It’s the bully’s retort upon being called out—expressing the same resentment that might, say, lead a President to commit what the Mueller report refers to as potentially “obstructive acts.” “Snitty” is used to conjure up the image of people whom one would rather ignore stamping their feet—which may be why Barr joined it with the supposition that the letter Mueller signed was written “by one of his staff.”

    May 4, 2019

  • ‘Gobble snots?” There. I did it again. I really have not been drinking.

    May 4, 2019

  • Thank you, bilby. I'm sure a few gobble snots will set me straight again.

    May 3, 2019

  • Sorry, zuzu. My mistake - now corrected. “Gobbles” it is. However, “gobblets” has a lot of visual appeal.

    I am currently suffering from a combination of failing vision and side effects of chemotherapy that give me an an attention span of about ten seconds and short-term memory loss. This is a painful condition for one who used to make his living correcting other people’s writing mistakes.

    May 3, 2019

  • My friend in Perth, a naturalist who often leads groups on informative walks in the wild, tells me that the label “snotty gobbles” drives five-year-old boys into hysterics.

    May 3, 2019

  • The pot shop they say is irenical;

    It’s products are safely galenical.

    Its peace-giving herbs

    Will soothe what disturbs,

    And all forms of bliss are identical.

    May 3, 2019

  • To cultivate hatred you need time.

    And school is the classical seedtime

    To plant in their heads

    Resentments and dreads

    That later will blossom and breed crime.

    May 2, 2019

  • Sheer likeness gave Warhol his start

    But abstract’s still state of the art.

    There’s no need of skill.

    The critics will thrill

    At the beauty of your random clart.

    May 1, 2019

  • His hair and his skin are synthetic,

    His rhetoric coarse and pathetic,

    His thoughts at best vagrant,

    His falsehoods are flagrant

    And worse - he is analphabetic.

    April 30, 2019

  • I would be very interested to learn the name of a type of domesticated tiger.

    April 29, 2019

  • Sir Thomas’ enlightened Utopia

    Was plucked from an old cornucopia

    That these days is spilling

    New dreams for fulfilling.

    Perfection is now ecotopia.

    April 29, 2019

  • I’m all for the paleoclimate

    And ingenious ways that they time it,

    But I’ve an objection

    To this shrewd projection:

    It’s a damnable challenge to rhyme it.

    April 28, 2019

  • Word gathering can be quite tedious

    So Ernest, the evening just previous,

    Decided he’d rather

    Go drinking than gather.

    This morning his face defines griseous.

    Find out more about Ernest Bafflewit

    April 27, 2019

  • The changes are there for all to see

    That poets praise as trite policy.

    The seasons are rife

    With the cycles of life

    So whence comes the need of phenology?

    April 27, 2019

  • Indifference in awful proximity

    To me seems but simple dimwittery.

    This professor Ngai

    Would beg to deny,

    Perceiving a complex stuplimity.

    April 27, 2019

  • noun A feeling of combined shock and boredom.

    April 27, 2019

  • Old spy films featured exotic chicks

    Suggestively sucking on chopsticks,

    Giving sultry side glances

    That promised romances

    Not found in the dull extratropics.

    April 26, 2019

  • It’s Eden created anew

    For plants and the animals too.

    We’re perfectly green

    In the Symbiocene

    And live on the fresh morning dew.

    April 25, 2019

  • Symbiocene – noun A proposed name for the next geological period, focusing on human integration into the environment, as opposed to human exploitation of the environment.

    April 25, 2019

  • from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

    noun Collective creation or organization.

    April 24, 2019

  • We’re binge watching Game of strange Thrones

    Which teaches no good work atones.

    No matter how pure

    The good must endure

    A lifetime of cruel bomb cyclones.

    April 24, 2019

  • from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

    noun A type of extratropical cyclone characterized by high winds, a high level of precipitation, and rapid development.

    April 24, 2019

  • You own all its practical uses;

    Your portion is all it produces.

    As legal construct

    This odd usufruct

    Resembles the old emphyteusis.

    April 23, 2019

  • Is “spag” ever used apart from “bol?” As in “I’ll boil the spag. You make the bol.”

    April 23, 2019

  • See also spag bol, common British slang for spaghetti bolognese. Is “spag” ever used apart from “bol?” As in “I’ll boil the spag. You make the bol.”

    April 23, 2019

  • When each member’s offering ceases

    The team will assemble the pieces.

    Familiar and clear -

    There’s nothing new here.

    What need of this odd sympoiesis?

    April 23, 2019

  • A woodchuck is in the foundation;

    The walls have a steady rotation

    Of squirrels and mice

    No bait will entice.

    The house needs a good defaunation.

    April 21, 2019

  • The “et cetera” here is the key

    Suggesting all healthy and free.

    Ecosocialism harks

    To much more than Marx,

    It’s life as you’d like it to be.

    April 20, 2019

  • With age comes refinement of friends

    As seen in the news that each sends.

    It’s like-minded pals we are

    Who share solastalgia,

    Regretting at length the late trends.

    April 19, 2019

  • My night beast is more than he seems -

    A tireless hatcher of schemes.

    With paws clawed and spatulate

    Coat rippled and maculate

    He stalks my most unwary dreams.

    April 19, 2019

  • The lover of flowers affirms

    That blossoms speak meaningful terms.

    The message vermiculate

    Is no less articulate -

    The unsubtle sentence of worms.

    April 19, 2019

  • Though thieves in office face expiration

    Their penitence only earns expiation,

    So history owes

    Defiant bozos

    Contempt and complete extirpation.

    April 19, 2019

  • I read but remain still perplexed:

    These things must be big and complex,

    But give them a name

    And they stay the same,

    No simpler as hyperobjects.

    April 17, 2019

  • casting = the excrement of an earthworm.

    April 16, 2019

  • Monadnocks are rather a prodigy -

    Both orphaned and sterile of progeny.

    Peaks crowded in ranges

    Will undergo changes,

    But these are aloof from orogeny.

    April 16, 2019

  • A man whose beliefs are fallacious

    Can err without being mendacious,

    But rise in defiance

    Of that vile alliance

    Of knowing men still pervicacious.

    April 15, 2019

  • Despite man’s thoughtless techno pride

    Our land mass sinks in a long slow tide.

    Our noxious emissions

    Have made the conditions

    So ripe for the planet’s ecocide.

    April 15, 2019

  • Does Junior deserve our full scorn

    Or Eric the comics’ bullhorn?

    Is it mere misconception

    That forms our perception

    Of offspring so sadly fool-born?

    April 15, 2019

  • I rage at the telephone scam attacks

    But words don’t suffice, the drama lacks.

    I long to hear howls

    From a blade in the bowels

    That tips my emotional scramasax.

    April 14, 2019

  • Physicians expert in the humors

    Looked into our stool for new tumors.

    Let’s give them now clemency

    For iatrochemistry,

    A medicine based on thin rumors.

    April 14, 2019

  • He sounded rehearsed and too windy

    Like most other candidates, didn’t he?

    Give me, I implore,

    The full-throated roar

    Of someone who’s honest and findy.

    April 14, 2019

  • When viewing the species’ sad state

    I’m weary and feebly irate.

    If tychism’s spin

    Could give us a win

    I’ll take it in preference to fate.

    April 14, 2019

  • Another goblinite sycophant

    Unloading another bat shit rant.

    If these are opinions

    Of his loyal minions

    What follies await still latinant.

    April 13, 2019

  • New games have an authentic feel

    And strive to be viscerally real,

    With corpses galore

    And fountains of gore

    Replacing old cerebral kriegspiel.

    April 13, 2019

  • Oh, fight like an angry polecat

    But chemo won’t care about that;

    Soon old alopecia,

    That gaunt gallows preacher,

    Will leave you a naked mole-rat.

    April 12, 2019

  • He lies in a casual way,

    A child who’s immersed in his play.

    So truth’s to be laughed to scorn

    And rendered adiaphoron

    And nobody cares what we say.

    April 12, 2019

  • Old Abner cut plugs with a chainsaw

    And chewed one before every sangschaw.

    The music ensuing

    He paused in his chewing

    But finished the night with the same chaw.

    April 9, 2019

  • I will put it on the list. I get out of the hospital today and I will oil up my rusty rhyming gears. Medical interruptions may continue to occur.

    April 9, 2019

  • As witches while stirring a curse might

    The hidden ones whooped on that birthnight;

    They drank until dawn

    To honor their spawn

    While moon men writhed in the earthlight.

    April 2, 2019

  • There was a logician named Chisolm,

    An expert at paralogism

    Beset by the nemeses

    Of mistaken premises -

    Attracting extensive derision.

    April 2, 2019

  • So many the threats that affright us,

    What new ones will rise up to smite us?

    With each plague forgotten

    A new one’s begotten.

    Oh, hark to its horrid vagitus!

    April 2, 2019

  • God give us the gift of the wit to see

    How laden with magic incipiency

    Is each life begun

    And warmed by the sun

    At the moment of perfect totipotency.

    April 2, 2019

  • He loathes any weak cosmothetic;

    The solopsist calls them pathetic.

    If the real’s but surmised

    Won’t he be surprised,

    Entrapped in the pure theoretic.

    March 25, 2019

  • There’s babble, there’s gabble and chatter;

    There’s jabber and gibber and patter.

    You can, if you’d rather,

    Abide by plain blather

    Or flatter the word fans with blatter.

    March 24, 2019

  • The cat said, “The rules must apply!”

    “Not so,” did the wise mouse reply.

    “We’ll chase just for show

    But you’ll let me go.

    The household will prosper and dulcify.”

    March 23, 2019

  • When dressed by a brilliant couturier

    A confident rogue may rule the day.

    Celeb or new royal,

    The skilled handlers toil

    To hide any taint of roturier.

    March 22, 2019

  • A horror flick’s tricky manipulation

    Will interweave fear and titillation.

    The body is stirred

    By pleasures inferred

    And chilled to a lovely horripilation.

    March 21, 2019

  • My snooze was light and perhaps brief

    For rhyming’s a bullying nap thief.

    But once I awaken

    The word-hoard is shaken

    And spills out the limerick’s capsheaf.

    March 20, 2019

  • Your wealth is finally useless,

    Your status is fleeting and bootless.

    Be known by your deeds

    And tend other’s needs.

    Our lives are a brief emphyteusis.

    March 19, 2019

  • The passage I’m sure is generic

    And comes to each celibate cleric:

    A mid-life decision

    Twixt sex and religion

    Must mark any true climacteric.

    March 18, 2019

  • The anthropocentric delusion

    Deceives by hubristic exclusion.

    We’d better envision

    A biocentrism

    That celebrates life’s great profusion.

    March 17, 2019

  • “How fitting that I should excel at this!

    It cannot be chance, rather telesis.

    The strong grip of fate

    Draws me to be great,”

    Said Donald while dangling o’er Hell’s abyss.

    March 16, 2019

  • Thank you, zuzu.

    March 15, 2019

  • The king’s table manners weren’t nice;

    His beard caught enough to dine twice.

    The courtiers ignored these

    Great feculent sordes

    But not so his dogs nor the mice.

    March 15, 2019

  • Because Wordnik is case sensitive. Check out word as opposed to Word.

    March 14, 2019

  • The Word of the Day is the bearer

    Of either delight or of terror.

    Will triumph of wit

    Or misery’s pit

    Await this obsessed circle-squarer.

    March 14, 2019

  • A boy could be hardly more blessed than

    To know his true course as a freshman.

    A student who’s willing

    With talent for killing

    Can earn a degree as a deathsman.

    March 13, 2019

  • If a he and a she cormorant

    Desire a deeper détente

    There’s cooing and billing

    Then, both sides once willing,

    A brief and ungainly corant.

    March 12, 2019

  • A quiz kid’s responsive velocity

    Is a practical test of precocity.

    If sulci are deep

    And gyri are steep

    The credit must go to rugosity.

    March 11, 2019

  • With Christmas at last put to bed

    Her costume was happily shed;

    Then Mrs Saint Nich’las

    Put on her white cyclas

    And banned from the house all that’s red.

    March 10, 2019

  • Though many as felons had crossed the sea

    The wise ones worked and got property.

    So tenure and time

    Erased any crime

    And built a respected squattocracy.

    March 9, 2019

  • It’s easy to thrive as a pharisee

    But better to boast a small heresy.

    Society talks

    Of the unorthodox

    And welcomes them into the clerisy.

    March 8, 2019

  • The smart folks who make electronics

    Have apps now to test algedonics,

    So sybarites measure

    Their portion of pleasure

    In service to higher hedonics.

    March 7, 2019

  • The cathedral of John the Apostle

    Contains a small shred of his fossil

    And aft of the altar

    With candles and psalter

    A wonderful cloth-of-gold dossal.

    March 6, 2019

  • They’ll dig old LPs out of stock

    To listen and endlessly talk;

    Soon sober lithology

    Transforms to mythology

    When true devotees discuss Rock.

    March 5, 2019

  • Our Puritan ancestors hail

    The proof that their truths do not fail:

    A heaven-sent talisman

    Of obdurate malism -

    The goblin’s allowed to prevail.

    March 4, 2019

  • Velouté, in some recipes,

    Must mother a proper soubise,

    But there’s little loss

    In milkier sauce,

    So bêchamel serves in a squeeze.

    March 3, 2019

  • Oh sing out Hosannah! and Gloria!;

    Surrender to springtime euphoria!

    The world is new rife

    With infinite life -

    Great mammals to least infusoria!

    March 2, 2019

  • “Preppy?” The gibe is moronic.

    A rhyme need be only euphonic.

    Such nattering will be

    Expected of bilby

    And mummified buddies pharaonic.

    March 1, 2019

  • Life ‘round the black mines took its toll.

    Kids played with survival their goal.

    To dig in the culm

    Would sicken and dull ‘em

    But yielded a few lumps of coal.

    March 1, 2019

  • The old organ-grinder, Giuseppe,

    Employed a deft monkey called Pepi.

    He gracefully bowed

    At coins from the crowd

    And scooped them all up in his kepi.

    February 28, 2019

  • Now fitful and ill-omened gusts stir

    The sails that once swelled with his bluster.

    The ship of state drifts

    And fades in the mists

    From bowsprit to drooping aplustre.

    February 27, 2019

  • Air conditioning’s a sensible plan -

    Does more than a swamp cooler can.

    A thermantidote

    Might garner my vote

    If I can’t have a lackey with fan.

    February 26, 2019

  • Oh let us forever recall

    Redoubtable Miss Honeyball,

    And take quiet pride

    In her valiant side,

    A model of strength for us all.

    February 26, 2019

  • I’m told that our cells do regenerate.

    We’re fully renewed in a septennate.

    If I could consult

    On a better result

    I might have a body to celebrate.

    February 25, 2019

  • Brainstorming should be ecumenical.

    Diversity’s brew is alchemical;

    It needs lively minds

    Of varying kinds

    Assembled with drinks in a cenacle.

    February 24, 2019

  • It pleased folk in monoglot Babel

    To quarry and stack and to scabble,

    But all their ambition

    Had one sad fruition:

    Sweet discourse was blasted to gabble.

    February 23, 2019

  • It’s true, and everyone knows so,

    Mike Pence is a dud as a mozo,

    But don’t you suppose

    A red bulbous nose

    Would suit him to serve as a bozo?

    February 22, 2019

  • The patient would stubbornly claim

    That things exist only in name

    Till a wild paroxysm

    Of nominalism

    Established that “traffic” can maim.

    February 21, 2019

  • Be careful, insouciant Babette!

    You’re pleased now to play the coquette,

    But many a flirt

    Has lifted her skirt

    To trip down the stairs to lorette.

    February 20, 2019

  • To artists whose gig is harmonic

    Applause is an absolute tonic.

    They notice its length

    And assay its strength

    By internal rules algedonic.

    February 19, 2019

  • Oh, heed the opinions of him

    Who’s wise in even his whim!

    The world as it ought to be

    Is found in timocracy

    As limned in the wisdom of Tim.

    February 18, 2019

  • My solitude is an annoyance

    But calls from my love give me buoyance,

    And word that she’s wending

    Toward her absence ending

    I hear with a heartwarming joyance.

    February 17, 2019

  • King Henry had no need to give

    An order to insert the shiv.

    He probably said,

    “Would Becket were dead!”

    But spoke in the dread optative.

    February 16, 2019

  • There was a poor fellow in Bosnia

    Who suffered persistent parosmia,

    His organs olfactory

    So badly refractory

    He spent all his days fighting nausea.

    February 15, 2019

  • You say that she apples your eye,

    Your peach, your adored sweetie pie,

    But “leman,” though apt

    Will get your face slapped -

    Too bitter a fruit to apply.

    February 14, 2019

  • The brown nose is smugly proficient

    And lazybones barely sufficient,

    But have we no name

    For steady but game,

    The student who’s calmly perficient?

    February 13, 2019

  • The painter of portraits perceived

    His subject’s most evident need

    So gave the sorry soul

    A golden gloriole,

    Which Donald thought fitting indeed.

    February 12, 2019

  • Madame Speaker Contemplates the Washington Monument

    That obelisk, dully euclidian,

    Taught Nancy a truth non-quotidian:

    There’s skillful statecraft

    In giving the shaft

    But art in the sharp pyramidion.

    February 11, 2019

  • Mankind’s fertile brain can contrive

    Many ways to apply the ogive,

    In weapons that will

    Only threaten and kill

    And temples to keep hope alive.

    February 10, 2019

  • Buying means to give metal some shape

    Beware of the practical jape:

    Be sure of a handle

    On what is a mandrel -

    Know mandrill’s a bright-bottomed ape.

    February 9, 2019

  • Thank you, zuzu.

    February 8, 2019

  • King Solomon once had to mediate

    A hotly disputed wee kiddy’s fate.

    He brought truth to light

    And set things aright,

    Proposing the claimants dimidiate.

    February 8, 2019

  • The eager new candidate crop’ll

    Encounter a panicked estopple.

    The engines of slime

    Will waste little time

    In heaping a slanderous copple.

    February 7, 2019

  • Cohorts of bold coho croon on top of pontoons.

    February 6, 2019

  • Damn! I’ve been using this to mean the study of salmon.

    February 6, 2019

  • Security forces have set a rule:

    No backpack, no bag nor reticule,

    And minimize talking

    While doing your gawking

    Inside of the sanctified edicule.

    February 6, 2019

  • A Celtic cloak fastener penannular

    Tells everybody how grand you are,

    And some chiefs more chic

    Give fashion a tweak

    With belt buckles big and triangular.

    February 5, 2019

  • Some schooling’s required by laws

    For each one and every because

    It’s there they enrobe

    Our clay in engobe

    To hide all the natural flaws.

    February 4, 2019

  • Bewusstseinslage on a bun with mustard. Corn on the side.

    February 4, 2019

  • https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Bewusstseinslage

    psychology

    : a state of consciousness or a feeling devoid of sensory components

    February 3, 2019

  • A fishing boat captain named Twitchell

    Will end every trip with a ritual:

    He toasts his last catch

    With rum down the hatch

    And gleefully ditches his switchel.

    February 3, 2019

  • The Nancy mask known as “The Wizard”

    Is DC’s most popular vizard.

    It easily trumps

    The choice of the chumps,

    The orange one sold as “The Lizard”.

    February 2, 2019

  • See also comments at haverel.

    February 1, 2019

  • Thank you, zuzu. I could have sworn that I checked that Wordnik had an entry for melamine so I was dismayed to re-check post-posting and to find none.

    My eyesight is failing and I have a literal blind spot at the right end of my field of focus so the ends of things tend to get mangled. I appreciate the help.

    See melamine.

    February 1, 2019

  • A tired knight after a journey

    Or weary from fighting a tourney

    Will gladly displace

    His hot carapace

    And flirt with the girls in his byrnie.

    February 1, 2019

  • Adepts of the junk delver scene

    Are scornful of used melamine,

    But dream to have dug

    A fabled brown jug -

    The bearded old stone bellarmine.

    January 31, 2019

  • On sidelines some folks have the task

    Of tending a squeezable flask

    And being alert

    To give players a squirt

    While still in the big football casque.

    January 30, 2019

  • The wind-tousled hairdo fantastic

    Has turned to a video classic.

    Like the visual tale

    Of the umbrella fail

    Its status is idiographic.

    January 29, 2019

  • Contortionist fees are a ruination

    But skill clearly merits remuneration.

    Pay moderate fees

    For less expertise

    And least for a plain supination.

    January 28, 2019

  • The Tupelo family called Pfeffer

    Was stuck in a stuporish tepor

    Till Mom started pagin’

    Through recipes cajun

    To temper their torpor with pepper.

    January 27, 2019

  • There once was a miser named Ben,

    The tersest in speech among men.

    He swelled his great hoard

    By taking on board

    The syllable saved by good-den.

    January 26, 2019

  • A conspiracy theorist’s first rate

    At sniffing the schemes of Deep State,

    Connecting the dots

    Of devious plots

    And gathering facts to colligate.

    January 25, 2019

  • The word suggests music divine

    But I hear a grunt and a whine.

    Perhaps if you strangle

    An unneeded angel

    Heaven might sing in the seraphine.

    January 24, 2019

  • As Fortune’s wheel turns on its center

    The wise need no circumferentor.

    Your rising has meant

    A fatal descent -

    Let cries of the crushed be your mentor.

    January 23, 2019

  • A sharp tongue may silence a villain

    And rapier wit may well still him,

    But should doltish guise

    Be barbed by surprise

    Be sure that your sword bears a quillon.

    January 22, 2019

  • It’s sad that our welfare should hinge

    On pols who will cower and cringe

    And dread to lose face

    ‘Fore the almighty ‘base’

    That’s herded by Murdoch’s vile swinge.

    January 21, 2019

  • The gentlemen dodged Philomena

    (As you would if ever you’d seen her).

    They never could trust her:

    That ersatz nut buster

    Was famed for her false, “Philopena!”

    January 20, 2019

  • See also comments at subreption.

    January 19, 2019

  • Two years of news and reflection

    Regarding the Russian connection

    Has still not induced

    The foolish seduced

    To see any sign of subreption.

    See also comments at obreptitious.

    January 19, 2019

  • The beasts have convened to debate:

    Should jackal or louse bear the weight,

    Or lizard take blame

    Sparing others the shame

    That Donald and they be connate.

    January 18, 2019

  • carburetor

    January 17, 2019

  • One weather chat characteristic

    Is rather a linguistic missed trick:

    Why rain dogs and cats

    Not pigeons and bats,

    A figure more aptly faunistic?

    January 17, 2019

  • Doomed cromlech

    January 16, 2019

  • His voice and his pictures surround,

    Like a pair of assailants they pound.

    They stab and they wound

    And leave us in stound

    Then kick us when we’re on the ground.

    January 16, 2019

  • Could a name for “enforcer of law” be

    More cozy than plain British “bobby?”

    See “peeler” that was

    Supplanted because

    The cockneys considered it nobby.

    January 15, 2019

  • Thumb thwack

    January 15, 2019

  • rampant poppycock

    January 14, 2019

  • Carpal dog snot

    January 14, 2019

  • Vorpal wombat

    January 14, 2019

  • I’ve rhymed my long weary way

    Five years without missing a day.

    Now rest on nostalgia

    Or choose cephalalgia,

    The price the obsessive must pay?

    January 14, 2019

  • High sentiments can’t hide the truth

    That much of our lives is uncouth.

    We desperately muddle

    And struggle to huddle

    Like penguins in search of some lewth.

    January 13, 2019

  • Reality’s under attack,

    Each speech a stinging gob smack.

    His gilt is amazin’;

    It seems as if brazen

    But even his brass is tombac.

    January 12, 2019

  • From cold northern seas to the Tasman,

    And islands perfumed with sweet jasmine,

    O’er endless bleak fetches

    The transported wretches

    Survived on slim hope and coarse maslin.

    January 11, 2019

  • An infant who’s fierce for the nipple

    Once grown may be given to tipple

    And if so accursed

    Must manage his thirst,

    Not guzzle but daintily sipple.

    January 10, 2019

  • That's cool, man. Pas de problemo.

    January 9, 2019

  • Though legal, leave pot well alone;

    It made my backyard Yellowstone.

    There Old Faithful spat

    And frightened the cat

    While a bear played a fine mellophone.

    January 9, 2019

  • There once was a youth in Australia

    Who slept in odd paraphernalia -

    Wore armor to bed,

    To cushion his head

    A pillow was stuffed in his galea.

    January 8, 2019

  • The Dutch have odd habits, by Jove!

    And sooterkin shows us a trove:

    Just why should Dutch ladies

    Be toasting their nates

    Or want to sit over a stove?

    January 7, 2019

  • Some credit strange creatures from space

    Or think that a ghost haunts the place

    But don’t often see

    The theophany

    Made plain in a babe’s smiling face.

    January 6, 2019

  • The suffering drones who are seen least

    Will say that their boss is a mean beast

    But turns a fine fellow

    When workers grow mellow

    At the annual company beanfeast.

    January 5, 2019

  • The poets of old made a song

    With anvil and hammer and tong,

    Now rap’s all the rage

    That’s stamped by a swage

    So writers need never be strong.

    January 4, 2019

  • The barbering tar would opine,

    “The hardest to shave’s the jawline.

    The prow of the chin

    Is easy as sin

    But not the damned barnacled chine.”

    January 3, 2019

  • See ferial, which means pertaining to a holiday or pertaining to any day of the week which is not a holiday.

    January 2, 2019

  • The day of the week’s immaterial

    Official, mundane, or ethereal.

    You’re sure to be vexed

    Without some context

    When told the occasion is ferial.

    Ferial is one of those words that supports opposite meanings. There are at least three lists that try (more or less strictly) to collect these:

    autantonyms, self-antonyms, contranyms.

    January 2, 2019

  • It may be all rumor and hearsay

    But true in a chillingly weird way:

    The Kremlin’s thick walls

    Hide banquets and balls

    On Donald’s inaugural year-day.

    January 1, 2019

  • The crow of the cock was more cheery

    Or the bell tolling bedtime when weary.

    A lovely hodgepodge

    We’ve called horologe

    Gives way to Alexa and Siri.

    December 31, 2018

  • He mines his deep mind for some rhyme

    And hopes he will find the sublime.

    In fits and in spasms

    He scours those chasms

    Constrained by his scarce undertime.

    December 30, 2018

  • Our energies ought to be less spent

    In making the past year’s assessment.

    To Hell be it sped!

    Let’s focus instead

    On next year with hopeful empressement.

    December 29, 2018

  • In what an immoral dark wilderness

    Could infants be brutally killed en masse?

    Such blasphemous crime

    In ‘Great’ Herod’s time

    Is subject and theme of our Childermas.

    December 28, 2018

  • Be quiet and give your attention:

    Obey every rule and convention;

    Just be a good Tassie,

    Not vain or too snazzy,

    And never be sent to Detention.

    December 27, 2018

  • If a boob should protrude ‘accidentally’

    She cannot help what he happens to see.

    I’ll give you few clues

    As to what then ensues

    But mention in passing his appetency.

    December 27, 2018

  • Imagine how lonely he’s feeling -

    The shepherd immured in his shieling.

    Forgive if you can

    That natural man

    For finding a sweet ewe appealing.

    December 26, 2018

  • Oh, might some benevolent magus

    With gift of his wisdom assuage us,

    And bring us, we pray,

    On this Christmas Day

    Surcease from the sorrows that plague us.

    December 25, 2018

  • These days in their fruitful adjacency

    Can tempt us to hope and complacency.

    The new year and yule -

    A birth and renewal -

    Seem marks of a new age in nascency.

    December 24, 2018

  • We save for those fellows who rule

    The sturdy and hallowed curule.

    Its virtues are spare

    As a practical chair

    But, my! What a really cool stool.

    December 23, 2018

  • A moat had its uses I’m sure:

    It must have been mainly a sewer,

    But when the pontlevis

    That crossed that foul crevice

    Was raised all within were secure.

    December 22, 2018

  • He dreams of a thirty-day rental

    But beaches and basking are mental,

    For Ernest though poor

    Just loves the allure

    Of saying he’s paid for a trental.

    Find out more about Ernest Bafflewit

    December 21, 2018

  • It’s Banksy I hear who in Monaco

    Installed a big fresco ironical.

    At night it evinces

    Affection for princes,

    In daylight it fades to intonaco.

    December 20, 2018

  • Let all of us be on our guard

    Lest judgment be hasty and hard.

    Is it tenderest sharing

    Or harsh and uncaring

    For a husband to suffer couvade?

    The definition supplied with the Word of the Day gives a positive spin to couvade but other definitions and examples are less generous.

    December 19, 2018

  • Might science discover a measure

    For comedy’s varying pressure,

    A new kymograph

    For giggle and laugh

    To trace precise records of pleasure?

    December 18, 2018

  • He can be annoying now, can’t he,

    Accepting our treats nonchalantly?

    In his humble view

    It’s only his due.

    He’s clearly a pococurante.

    December 17, 2018

  • Is your ear befuddled or mine?

    I’m pleased with the aural design.

    The internet voices

    Confirm my first choices,

    But maybe it’s different in Strine.

    December 17, 2018

  • We all crave a leader who’s leonine,

    An image that’s noble and fine,

    But something’s amiss

    With slither and hiss

    And leadership that’s colubrine.

    December 16, 2018

  • Grown tired of wealth’s mental stress

    He worked and he spent a bit less.

    He kept all he’d bought-

    His houses, his yacht-

    And honed a relaxed gentilesse.

    December 15, 2018

  • You’d hardly believe it, just what furor

    Was stirred by that tuneless loud quatuor!

    Hell’s recesses shook

    In every dark nook;

    The doors blew off and bats flew o’er.

    December 14, 2018

  • At beauty fests times immemorial

    He claimed rights visitatorial

    And cheekily breached

    The dressing room niche

    As though he had privilege seigneurial.

    December 14, 2018

  • From the pronunciation guidance I find it rhymes with mock steam, but I have not found a true two-syllable, one-word rhyme.

    December 14, 2018

  • Just where might you look for a wallaby

    Or find a big prairie dog colony?

    What habitats boast

    The least and the most

    And why, is the realm of chorology.

    December 13, 2018

  • In the matter of Moses’s toes

    Just what may the scholar suppose?

    The text could be comical

    Or else anatomical.

    He’d better define the skopos.

    Any unfamiliar with the matter of Moses’s toes can be enlightened at this link:

    https://youtu.be/cQLnrBxVw3M

    December 12, 2018

  • One of the nicest Swedish deserts is a big sponge cake coated in whipped cream and studded with strawberries. In my wife’s family this is called by a name that translates to “maternal grandmother’s cake” but phonetically it is “murmur’s caca.” This give pause to those who are first introduced to it.

    December 11, 2018

  • The forms of address can get messy

    When croc and newcomer are freshie.

    I’d stumble, by gosh,

    ‘Cause we call them frosh

    And ‘gators are what might distress me.

    December 11, 2018

  • Old crocs that are cruising the Nile

    To Aussie eyes look juvenile.

    They are mighty paltry

    Compared to a saltie

    And prosaically fluviatile.

    December 11, 2018

  • The pepparkakor is one of the seemingly infinite variety of cookies my wife’s Swedish family bakes at Christmas.

    December 10, 2018

  • Ol’ bilby persists in his pranks

    But, weary, I tell him, “No thanks.”

    He may embrace fully

    The wus and the wully

    But my brief stops well short of Manx.

    December 10, 2018

  • A young person’s mind is in tumult,

    While fertile and green it is uncult,

    So passionate youth

    Neglects tact for truth

    And old withered ears hear an insult.

    December 10, 2018

  • To set a tone lofty and moral

    Some leaders eschew petty quarrel.

    The goblin by contrast

    Loves insult and bombast.

    He’s hopelessly clumsy and borrel.

    December 9, 2018

  • Some suitors use comic material;

    Others are sweet and ethereal.

    Some try derring-do

    But the most daring woo

    Is feigning the sexless empyreal.

    December 8, 2018

  • Cf. ultramontaine.

    December 7, 2018

  • The still mists stifle and stain

    Befouling the air of the plain.

    Skies formerly bright

    With reason’s clear light

    Need fresh gusts ultramontaine.

    Cf. tramontane.

    December 7, 2018

  • He’ll hunt and he’ll peck to collect,

    To source, classify and connect,

    But Ernest’s best hope is

    An eccentric opus.

    He’ll never compose a pandect.

    Find out more about Ernest Bafflewit

    December 6, 2018

  • *Doffs his hat.*

    December 5, 2018

  • It’s deep sea that makes a shad amorous

    But love misapplied is calamitous.

    How bad must she feel

    To fall for an eel

    Then learn that her lover’s catadromous.

    December 5, 2018

  • While some play the spoons or the bones

    Let others percuss with two stones,

    Or add a zambomba

    And cry ¡Ay,caramba!

    Enriching the idiophones.

    December 4, 2018

  • The flourish too much was the bonnet;

    Mugs curses the moment he donned it.

    The cops on the hunt

    Could see through his stunt;

    His costume was sadly incondite.

    December 3, 2018

  • I prithee, begone! Thou annoyeth us,

    Profaning these sanctified cloisters.

    A monk should be meek

    And hark more than speak

    But thou stealeth ale and are boistous.

    December 2, 2018

  • His statements, both tweets and official,

    Give proof of a grave mental issue.

    His dad joined the Klan

    And formed the young man

    So call it a trait gentilitial.

    December 1, 2018

  • Fresh leather, uneven and knobbled,

    Must always be thoroughly cobbled,

    But whacking on lapstones

    Is hard on a chap’s bones

    And prospects of offspring are hobbled.

    November 30, 2018

  • This pasta, I think you will find,

    Accepts sauce of most any kind.

    She’s not a cheap floozy

    Yet cannot be choosy

    For, i-less, spaghett is thus blind.

    November 30, 2018

  • Penelope’s dining is stylish:

    A dainty and well-seasoned dry mix

    In a Baccarat bowl

    That’s food for the soul

    And catnip infusion en kylix.

    November 29, 2018

  • The customs of England amaze me.

    Their judges wear gowns and a jasey.

    Has no one there twigged

    They’re strangely bewigged

    Considering wiggy means crazy?

    November 28, 2018

  • It’s countless the pastas I’ve met:

    Farfalle, linguini and yet

    From out all the many,

    The orzo and penne,

    The noblest is humble spaghett!

    November 27, 2018

  • In Venice the portly Geppetto

    Near capsized a small vaporetto.

    Resolved to get thinner

    He had for his dinner

    A polpetta bewreathed in spaghetto.

    November 27, 2018

  • A remarkable archaeological achievement, bilby. Also reminds me why I don’t want to be a fisherman.

    November 27, 2018

  • Poetasters flog wits with a withy

    To beat out some words that are pithy,

    Or bellow in time

    To the hammer of rhyme,

    Forging lines on the limerick’s stithy.

    November 27, 2018

  • The hunk at the neighborhood lido

    Swims freestyle and wears a tight speedo,

    But for the curmudgeon

    It’s trunks and the trudgen

    To show that he’s conquered libido.

    November 26, 2018

  • Priscilla, provisioned for hope, went

    Again for light strokes and tapotement.

    Should charm not procure

    A willing masseur

    Her checkbook might lead to elopement.

    November 25, 2018

  • Don’t go to the doc with a sniffle;

    She’ll warn of an ominous siffle.

    A cough and a sneeze

    Are not real disease.

    Avoid all that medical piffle.

    November 24, 2018

  • I just never know which ones are going to tickle people. Thank you both.

    November 23, 2018

  • That cowpoke’s so terribly loud he

    Quite shook the whole house with his “Howdy!”

    From force of his yell

    My wife’s soufflée fell.

    We served it as apple pandowdy.

    November 23, 2018

  • Said Winchell to Howard Cosell,

    “Have you ever had cocozelle?”

    Retorted young Howard,

    “I am not empowered,

    To say more than that I know her well.”

    November 22, 2018

  • In isles of the mangrove and manatee

    Swamp fevers can bring on insanity.

    To shelter your senses

    The best of defenses

    Is glass after glass of sweet sanagree.

    November 21, 2018

  • The fingers are pale as a larval brood

    And squirm like slick worms that are starved for food.

    But goblin’s do jabbing

    And coarse pussy grabbing,

    More foul for insinuant parvitude.

    November 20, 2018

  • He’s not much at subtle philosophy

    And stranger to grace, wit or prosody,

    But his vulgar sallies

    Do gin up his rallies.

    He’s champ when it comes to ventosity.

    November 19, 2018

  • I desperately hope and assume he

    Will go before night fears consume me,

    And take from the scene

    His strut and his preen,

    His self-praise and raging contumely.

    November 18, 2018

  • The pyramids furnish the proof

    We need but the hand and the hoof,

    For camel and manpower

    Built every grand tower,

    Assisted by levers, the sledge and shadoof.

    November 17, 2018

  • The shopkeeper cheerfully mocks

    The way that the Boer farmer talks.

    He’ll give him a thistle bloom

    When he wants a disselboom

    To hitch up his weary old ox.

    November 16, 2018

  • Yep. I’m wired.

    November 15, 2018

  • The dancer with all limbs akimbo

    Contorts in a lithesome low limbo.

    In firelight flesh glistens

    And all the world listens

    To the beat of the haunting berimbau.

    November 15, 2018

  • In seasons when sunlight is sparse

    The Princess stays in by the hearth.

    When Winter is gone

    And sun soaks the lawn

    Her court will disport on the garth.

    November 14, 2018

  • Brilliant, bilby! Can you copyright a dance move? Shall we race to the patent office? Gimme, gimme, gimme some money for that shimmy.

    November 13, 2018

  • I guessed it was old Abenaki

    Or maybe a rare type of sake,

    But alestake is pure

    Plain English for sure

    And none of that furrin malarkey.

    November 13, 2018

  • When travelers and steeds need a break

    There’s thirst of the horses to slake,

    But coachmen will push

    To the welcoming bush

    And go till they find an alestake.

    November 13, 2018

  • On the Great Puget Sound Octopus Survey

    Beware what the scholars purvey!

    Octopuses are coy in their way.

    They’re dodgers and dancers,

    You can’t trust their answers.

    Who knows how they’ll twist a survey?

    November 12, 2018

  • Concerning our great tribulation

    I offer a hopeful illation:

    The problem derives

    From imbibing lies

    And abstinence ends pixilation.

    November 12, 2018

  • If I were more learned and polished

    I’d know how to say “Magdalen College.”

    Odd words likes demyship

    Would trip light from my lip

    And all would admire my knowledge.

    An interesting note on local pronunciation:

    Don’t make the faux pas of pronouncing Magdalen College ‘Mag-de-len College’. It’s pronounced ‘Maudlin College’. Just to make things more confusing, Magdalen Street in the centre of Oxford IS pronounced ‘Mag-de-len’ but lively Magdelen Road in East Oxford is pronounced ‘Maudlin’ like the college. Got it?!

    http://www.weeklyhome.com/blog/mistakes-not-make-when-you-visit-oxford.html

    November 11, 2018

  • It’s strange prey the bandicoot stalks.

    A sionnach, I learned, is a fox.

    It’s not like he will be

    A pal to a bilby.

    He’ll eat him like bagels and lox.

    November 10, 2018

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