Bruce Bennett: Love Song To Garlic
(Garlic, Allium sativum, the stinking rose
—to the tune of The Yellow Rose of Texas.)
My little head of garlic, I love you, though you reek.
You are my source of gladness, the only rose I seek.
Let others sing of Sharon, or Tex’s Yellow Rose.
You are my stinking darling, and you’re the one I chose.
I want you close beside me, and not just in my soup.
Your scent is gross and pungent. It throws me for a loop!
Let them have their rotting cabbage, since that’s what suits them well.
I only want my garlic, since that’s what casts the spell.
My little head of garlic, I love you, though you reek.
Though some may deem you putrid, you are the one I seek.
Let others sing of Sharon, or Tex’s Yellow Rose.
You are my stinking darling, and you’re the one I chose.
Oh, I’ve tried out other roses, and they’ve all left me cold.
It’s only your aroma I want to have and hold.
You are nothing like a rosebud, but that’s not what I seek.
You’re my little head of garlic that I love because you reek.
They can call you by your Latin, they can call you stinking rose.
That doesn’t matter to me, you are the one I chose.
There’s no other who comes near you, that’s how it’s going to be.
Oh, my reeking head of garlic, you’re the only one for me.
Yes, my stinking head of garlic, you’re the only one for me.
You’re the only, only, only, only, only one for me!
∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇
Susan McLean: Snoring at Words on a Snowy Evening
(With apologies to R. F.)
Whose yawns these are I think I know:
my loyal audience, laid low
by words that settle in the brain
as numbingly as drifts of snow.
I don’t intend to cause them pain,
but poems seldom entertain.
The crystal images pile high
and never bother to explain.
I could stomp off, annoyed—but why?
They’re just as tired and sad as I.
This hour of rest is theirs to keep,
and so I chant their lullaby.
Whenever verse is dark and deep,
to hear it read beats counting sheep.
It’s kindest just to let them sleep.
It’s kindest just to let them sleep.
∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇
L.A. Mereoie: Safety Catch
(With apologies to T. H.)
Young Gus was really sure his gun
Was empty, like the rest,
And so he clicked it off, ‘for fun’,
At Uncle Leonard’s chest.
The AE surgeon and the nurse
Were used to horrid sights
Yet even so they’d seen few worse
Than Leonard’s leaded lights.
Oh, always treat it as untrue
That any gun’s unloaded
Or find like Gus there’s much to rue
In theories if exploded.
∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇
Bruce Bennett: He Enlists His Teenage
Daughter To Help With The Chores
(With apologies to G.M.H.)
Márgarét, are you kvetching
Over things I have had you fetching?
Tasks I’ve a right to ask you
Find that they overtask you?
Ah! As the work gets tougher,
You’re going to be a slougher
Till—I can see it clearly—
I’m going to règret dearly
Forcing you to assist me.
Honestly, you have pissed me
Off! I will find some neighbor
Child, and pay her for the labor.
I will be glad I bought her.
Better than asking a daughter
To do what I should have taught her!
∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇
Steven Kent: The Cake Aisle of Applebee’s
(With apologies to W. B. Y.)
I will arise and go now, and go to Applebee’s,
And a small order place there, of chicken waffles made;
A coffee will I have there, some pie and a slice of cheese,
And wait alone for the marmalade.
And I shall see Bernice there, Bernice who’s moving slow,
Moving from the start of the morning to what the lunchtime brings;
There late shift’s all a nuisance, the neon lights aglow,
Bernice untying her apron strings.
I will arise and go now, for always every day
I hear the senior discount saves ten percent or more;
While I stand at the counter, on carpet dirty grey,
I see suburban chain decor.
∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇
Max Gutmann: Hokery Pokery
(With apologies to J. K.)
I think that I shall neve see
Men Hokey-Pokey gracefully.
A man must shake a foot and then
Put in one more and shake again.
A man must put aside all doubt
And say he knows what it's about.
A man, at last, must shake his all,
A sight that's certain to appal.
The dance seems always rather jokey,
For only G-d can Hokey-Pokey
∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇
Jerome Betts: Round of Guile
(With apologies to L.C.)
“It's the vice of the golfer,” I heard one declare,
“To accuse better players of being unfair.
But I must report on the opposite plight,
A far worse performer I hereby indict.
I plopped in a bunker, where I marked with one eye
My opponent proceeding to better his lie.
By the use of his feet he was flattening rough
That would surely have made his next shot rather tough.
When I shaped up to drive he would talk of the view
Or ferret about for a grass blade to chew
And rattle his bag, stamp his feet, or perhaps
With a horrible crash let the trolley collapse.
It's the vice of the golfer, as the pundits point out,
To show fits of temper, to throw things and shout,
So I hope you'll be careful to keep this all dark
But there’s one club I swung which did not miss its mark!"
∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇
Mia Schilling Grogan: Summer and All:
to a teenager
(With further apologies to G.M.H.)
Lifeguard, are you pissed off
Over all the leaves you’ve whisked off?
Leaf patrol like all chores we do, you
With your lassitude dislike, don’t you?
Ah! As your summers simmer
You will come to bless the skimmer
By and by, and spare a wish
For days of floatsome leafstuff fished.
Yes, you will moan. Why? Here’s the twist:
For no matter, child, the name,
Nostalgia’s needs are the same;
No mom’s had, no nor dad’s forgotten
A summer job that wasn’t rotten.
It’s a tale you’ll use to torture youth.
It’s summers past you’ll mourn in truth.
∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇
Steven Kent: London, 2023
(With apologies to W. W.)
Wodehouse! Thou shouldst be living at this hour:
We sorely miss thee, yes, and Wooster, too,
For Jeeves, his man, would know just what to do
Each time our paltry wits fall short in power.
This modern world is sorely lacking now
Such ease of mind with which you carried on
In confidence most full, once you were gone,
That everything would work out well somehow.
Your sprezzatura (readers well recall)
Was like a wind that carried you above
The complications of both war and love,
So blissfully aloft beyond it all.
We may or may not be a stagnant fen,
But either way we need your voice again.
∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇ ∇
Paul Van Peenen: To Tea Or Not To Tea?
(With apologies to W.S.)
To tea or not to tea,
That is the question:
Whether tis nobler for the mind
To suffer the slings and arrows
Of an empty head
Or take arms against such vacancy
By drinking yet another cup:
To perk up, to be awake but perhaps
Not to sleep aye, there’s the rub,
For what insomnia may come
When we have shut off the lights
Must give us pause.
There’s the respect that makes
A calamity of such deep thirst.
For who would bear the scorn
Of those more clever,
The neurosurgeon, the rocket scientist,
Who would seat himself before
A stubbornly blank computer screen
But for the dread of that sleepless night?
Thus abstinence is for cowards after all,
Who dare not put full cup to lip
And lose the thread of whatever it is
They might have thought.
