Poetics and Ruminations

R. I. P. May Laura Putnam

Lewis, Luigi, May, c. 1935

MAYDAY 2012

 

For a year now this date has been laden

Not with the birth of a maiden —

         May Putnam, my mother,*

         But the death of another —

The monster Osama bin Laden.

____

* May 1, 1899-November 25, 1985.

 

State Penn Impending

There once was a coach named Paterno

Whose aide was discovered insterno.

         He told not a soul —

         Merely plugged up that hole

With a silence that loosed an Inferno. 

 

SANDUSKY Q-T

 

There once was a jock named McQueary

Who caught a compeer acting queerly.

         He told Joe Paterno

         Who said of this porno,

“I’ll go to the dean with your query.”

 

FISHY FRED

 

There once was a fool named Zarguna

Who hadn’t the brains of a tuna,

         So he took a great notion

         To jump in the ocean

And enter a school off Laguna.

 

Copyright © 2011, Wesli Court. All rights reserved.

 

The Ballad of Lake Wobegon

“I think he's losing it: his monologues recently often center about fart jokes or adolescent moonings over girls in grade school.” — A native Minnesotan.

 

A fellow named Garrison Keillor

Decided to be the big dealer

     Of free public verse

     More prolix than terse

And full of quotidian flea-lore.

 

He delved in review books to find

Material that might be mined

     And put out to flog

     On his PBS blog

Where “excellence” was undefined.

 

The peots he chose were doggone

Happy to be Wobegon —

     They fawned willy-nilly

     And, though they were silly,

They always had peoms to pawn.

 

The songs that he loved were so bad

They smelled like a midden of shad

     But sounded much worse

     Than even his verse

And drove musicologists mad:

 

One, “Jesus Put a Yodel in My Soul,” fell

As flat as a pancake in Hell.

     Folks wanted to scoff,

     But it so turned them off

That they spewed and began to expel, 

 

But he played it again the next day!

The hairs of his hearers turned gray,

         Except for some mules

         Who giggled like fools

And asses that started to bray.

 

And, speaking of smells, he told jokes

That painted a picture in strokes

     So windy and gassy

     They didn’t sound classy

To even some Wobegon folks.

 

The stories he told of the maids

He’d known in his earlier grades

     Were terribly sad —

     No longer a lad,

He still can’t get over their braids.

 

Beware of the man who is hairy, son,

He might be an ogre or fairy, son.

     If he proffers a feeler

     He might be a Keillor

Of quality — you must be wary, son.

 

Wesli Court 

A Basketball Apology

Once, long ago, in a pretty town named Storrs where I was young and a student, I attended a basketball game and watched my team do this:

 

           But now, tonight, many weeks after I had given up on another team fielded by my Alma Mater when they emerged from Big East Conference play with a 9-9 record, I am forced to my knees to beg their forgiveness, for I watched these young men and their ancient coach (though he is not as ancient as I) perform an absolutely incredible run of wins to become, first, Maui Invitational Tournament Champions, then Big East Tournament Champions, and at last National Champions, not having lost a single game, all season long, to any team outside the Big East! I’m glad I lived long enough to witness this feat and to deliver to the Huskies

A BELATED APOLOGY

Upon the Occasion of UConn’s Winning its Third National NCAA Basketball Men’s Championship

on April 5^th, 2011.

There once was a coach named Calhoun

Who pricked an enormous balloon

          When he turned poor old Butler

          Back into a scuttler

And returned the team to its cocoon.

 

In fact, now that I think about it, I dedicate my original poem to the Butler basketball team who tonight managed to shoot the lowest percentage of baskets since 1950 when I was still a high school student in Meriden, Connecticut.

Uncle Wesli’s Daily Epitaph for Wednesday, March 2, 2011

THEODOR SEUSS GEISEL

March 2, 1904 – September 24, 1991

 

Geisel was mothered by Goose,

And so, being somewhat obtuse,

         He tripped on a gans,

         Was impaled by a Lantz

And called himself Old Doctor Seuss.

 

Uncle Wesli’s New Mother Goose No. 11

 

Listen to Wesli Court read Piggery Dog

PIGGERY DOG

On the 10^th of July, 2001 I sent a letter to Dana Gioia in Santa Rosa, California, that said in part, “I write very little these days. My last poem you probably saw in The Formalist, ‘The Gathering of the Elders.’ My last except for this, which I wrote for my [then five-year-old] granddaughter, Jessima, when we passed a sign in Augusta [Maine] that read, “Piggery Road” --

Piggery Diggery Dog,

We’re supping high off the hog,

On fatback and bacon

With all else forsaken,

Piggery Diggery Dog.

         Today [yesterday], Thursday, 24 June 2010, I ran across that letter and the stanza that I’d never done anything with. Because Jessima, now a teen-ager, and her little sister Phoebe, six, are staying with my wife Jean and me while their folks are attending a conference in Washington, DC, I wrote the rest of this nursery rhyme for the two of them (but mostly for Phoebe, of course — Jessie is ‘way too sophisticated now):

 

Piggery Diggery Dog,

We’re supping high off the hog,

On fatback and bacon

With all else forsaken,

Piggery Diggery Dog.

 

Piggery Diggery Dog,

My brain is all in a fog,

         My thoughts are as misty

         As Agatha Christie,

Piggery Diggery Dog.

 

Piggery Diggery Dog,

My sister fell off of a log,

         She landed akimbo

         Then slipped into Limbo,

Piggery Diggery Dog.

 

Piggery Diggery Dog,

My engine is slipping a cog,

         It’s all out of whack

         And jumping the track,

Piggery Diggery Dog.

 

Piggery Diggery Dog,

The camel is out for a jog,

         The silly giraffe

         Is aching to laugh,

Piggery Diggery Dog.

 

Piggery Diggery Dog,

Look out for that fat pollywog

         Who thinks it’s a toad

         While crossing the road,

Piggery Diggery Dog.

 

Piggery Diggery Dog.

Your eyeballs are all of agog,

         They’re crossed and they’re walleyed

         And trying to backslide,

Piggery Diggery Dog.

 

Piggery Diggery Dog.

I’m done with this droll catalogue

         And if you want more

         Then try not to snore

And furnish your own epilogue.

 

Uncle Wesli’s Daily Epitaph for Thursday, June 24th, 2010

Ciardi, Robert Frost, and the Morrisons at Bread Loaf 

R.I.P. JOHN CIARDI

June 24, 1916 - March 30, 1986

 

The lately great limerist Ciardi,

Whose muse was nigh onto untardy,

         Whenever he sang

         In his New England twang,

Made rum sounds like, "Paw me a toddy."

Uncle Wesli’s Daily Epitaph for Sunday, May 2nd, 2010

 

R.I.P. LORENZ HART

May 2, 1895 – November 22, 1943

 

It is bewitching to divine

Why one would love a Valentine

As Funny as the counterpart

Of that described by Lorenz Hart.

 

 

R.I.P. WESLI COURT

May 2, 1934 -

 

Here lies at last and out of work,

The syllabubble wordsmith Turk

Who finds he cannot now resort

For rime to his sidekick Wesli Court.

 

 

R.I.P. LEWIS TURCO

May 2, 1934 -

 

In faith, he tendered us The Book of Forms.

Now he's become, as all, a Diet of Worms.

Still, may his sanctified vermiculite

Edge upward those who wish to see The Light.

R. S. Gwynn

Lew,

Happy birthday, old timer. And I can still out-pun you.

Tad Richards

 

Thank you, Tad,

And maybe you can, but can you write better iambic puntameter?

Lew

 

 

Lew Turco can truly enjamb,

Make the lion lie down with the lamb,

          But in coaxing pentameter,

Tad Richards, no amateur,

Just tells him, "Iamb what Iamb."

 

Tad Richards

 

 

So, Tad,

Does that make you an iambateur?

Lew

 

 

Tad Richards believes he can pun

So well that it’s simply no fun

To vie with a jerk

Like Lewie the Turk —

He’d rather be quite under-Donne.

 

Wesli Court

 

Lew,

I love your selected epitaphs...some of them are very close to being clerihews, which I like, too, and sometimes send to folks for their B'days — which reminds me (even tho' it's belated) here's one for you: 

 

Lewis Turco,

Our guide through the murk, Oh —

If not for his studious analyzing

All our work would be less enterprising.

 

Here's another, Lewis —

 

Lewis Turco (and Wesli Court)

Have — a generation — carefully taught

With examples, witty and unrivaled

From their noted “poet's bible” 

 

Much love to you!"

Leigh Harrison

Uncle Wesli’s Daily Epitaph for Thursday, April 1st, 2010

 

R.I.P. SANFORD STERNLICHT

April 1, 1934 -

 

Here lies a professor named Sternlicht

Whose Gulllible poems were tern-picked.

         He sat on his brood

         In an old Yorkshire snood

Till his eggs were all hatched and his stern licked.

Uncle Wesli’s New Mother Goose No. 6

 

HAPPY HARRY

 

Happy Harry Hooligan,

Acting like a fool again,

         Kissed a frog

         That sat on a log

And jumped into the pool again.

 

Originally published in Light Year '84, edited by Robert Wallace, Cleveland. OH: Bits Press, 1983. All rights reserved 2010 by Wesli Court.