HELD pending PUBLICATION

UPDATED SHAKESPEARIAN SENRYU  *

 To be; not to be; 
These options nail the question, 
"Why bear Fortune's woes?"

Lead samurai-SEALS 
Against Hokusai's "Great Wave", 
Or halt tsunamis?

Death curtails REM-sleep,
Avoids defibrillation, 
Cures anginal bouts.

The consummation?
End ills that flesh is heir to; 
Devoutly that's wished.

Make your quietus --
Bare bodkins, available,
Provide an off-ramp.

(A few may prefer
The rite of harakiri,
Per Clavell's "Shogun").

Otherwise, why bear
Badly sung karaoke,   
Life's weary fardels, 

Whips and scorns of time,
Head honcho's contumely,
The crowded onsen, 

Smart-alec geishas,
Lawsuits' judicial delay,
And long-lived phone-queues?

Die, sleep; dreams might loom, 
When mortal coil's shuffled off,
As grim show-stopper. 

Post-mortem --  we dread 
Puzzling lack of videos, 
Cancelled return flights.

Un-Googled country --
Dubious travel ratings,
Makes wimps of us all.

Currents turned awry,
Even pithy enterprise 
Scares off investors. 

 Author's Note: These verses fit with SENRYU, a lesser-known variant of haiku that shares certain physical characteristics (nominally three non-rhyming lines, with a 7-5-7 pattern for the number of syllables in each line). Several of the other rules differ, and particularly, the topic of senryu deals most often in a humorous or satiric way with man's foibles. We have used this format personally for dozens of verses appearing recently on our blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense", and remotely in a 2003 medical journal presentation entitled, "Seventeen haiku verses ... " You can read more about senryu HERE.

Readers might also enjoy our illustrated poems "Hamlet at the pub", and "Hamlet's fardels", and our earlier parody song-lyrics "The Play's A Sting" and "The Wreck of the Danish Royalty". 

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ADVENTURES OF LINGUIST LESLIE MOORE

compact summary:

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Authors' Note: The Greek myth of Pandora addresses the question of why there is evil in the world. Zeus had Pandora created as the first human female. She was given a jar (misinterpreted millenia later as a box) that contained all of life's evils, with careful direction to guard them. She opened the jar out of curiosity, releasing most of its regrettable contents, thereby infesting subsequent generations of humanity. But one item — hope — was kept inside.

In various ethnic superstitions, apotropaic (protective) magic is invoked to counter a malevolent spiritual force that takes away human good fortune if it is celebrated too loudly. This influence presumably underlies the popular Yiddish expression keyn ay(i)n horah (corrupted to keneinahora or kinahora, even KH in Anglo-Yiddish) translated directly as "no evil eye"; this expression is often invoked when a praiseworthy person or attribute is mentioned.

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Authors' Note: The conclusion of this imaginary placebo-controlled trial of magic in the prevention and treatment of ILLS can be stated as follows:

Parenteral administration of a low dose (1 gram) was found uniformly effective in prevention. For oral treatment of later established cases, the dosage requirement was found to be higher by a factor of 16 times (95% confidence interval: 9 — 25).

The above conclusion could, with inherent limitations of proportionality, be converted back to older units: "An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure."

 

DEC 26, CATALOG of DOGGEREL: PALINDROMES ("To and Fro")

   

Barred owl,
"Birds of Prey" demonstration

Harris hawk,
Marion Square, Charleston SC

        


 

 

1) Here's a list of links to collections of POEMS that honour palindromes (bidirectional wordplay), as found in posts on this blog. The shorter 'terse verses' of 1 or 2 stanzas are enumerated; the titles of additional longer poems with 3 stanzas or more ('brief sagas') are noted specifically in this tabulation.

For the larger collections, grouped in multiple sets, you can follow further links at the bottom of the primary post to proceed from 'part #1' to the next set on that topic.

Classic palindromes(limericks)#1      8

                                                #2       8

                                                   #3       8

                                                   #4       8

                                                   #5       4 + "Palindrome Workshop"

Life In Palindrome Valley                     9

Panama palindrome spoofs            9

Palinku (pal.-enriched haiku)     2020       6

                                               2021     12

                                               2022      12

                                               2023      11

                                               2024       9

                                     Presidential       9

                    Application in Spelling       7

   

SUMMARY OF POETRY POSTS RELATED TO PALINDROMES: In these 14 collections, we have accumulated more than 120 short poems on this topic, along with explanatory notes and illustrative photos. Mulling over this outpouring of six hundred lines of verse might be a good way to fill a dull winter evening. Join the party!  

2) Here's a list of links to SONG-LYRICS based on palindromes found in posts on our companion blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense".

 In some cases the original tune used for the song-base of the satire might not be obvious to the reader, so we have listed them all below. 

Otto                                     "Bob" (Weird Al Yankovich)

Palindromes of Evil              "Sounds of Silence"

Sin and Redemption                 "He's Got the Whole World In His Hands"

 X66X                                                     "Route 66"                        

3) Here's a list of links to WORDPLAY-DISPLAYS based on palindromes featured in posts in the archives of this blog -- "Edifying Nonsense".

Each of the enumerated posts consist of a collection of slides showing wordplay on a variety of topics; the number of posts and the approximate number of palindromes (pals) is displayed for each topic-based collection.

Political Palindromes:  5 posts; 45 pals

Magical Palindromes:   7 posts; 96 pals

Geographic Pals (Americas): 5 posts; 150 pals

Geographic Pals ("Old World") 5 posts; 122 pals

Miscellany of Topics ("Meaningful Life", "Culinary", "Canalindromes", etc.)

                                        3 posts; 100+pals

SUBMITTED PALINDROMES

Introduction to Participants    1 post; 58 pals 

Targeted Palindromes             4 posts; 110 pals

Random Submissions             59 posts; 630 pals

SUMMARY OF WORDPLAY-POSTS BASED on PALINDROMES: In these collections, we have accumulated over 1000 palindromes (given a few inadvertent duplications), including some from the classic "archive", and a good number concocted by your blog-editors and our generous 7 contributors.  ENJOY !!!

DEC 25, CATALOG of DOGGEREL: WORD-PAIRS, and COUPLES

snowy egret

  1) Here's a list of links to collections of POEMS that honour word-pairs, as found in posts on this blog. The shorter 'terse verses' of 1 or 2 stanzas are enumerated; the titles of additional longer poems with 3 stanzas or more ('brief sagas') are noted specifically in this tabulation.

For the larger collections, grouped in multiple sets, you can follow further links at the bottom of the primary post to proceed from 'part #1' to the next set on that topic.

Binomial expressions #1          8

                                     #2           8

                                    #3          2 + "echoic binomials"     

(Re)duplications  #1                  8

                              #2                  7

SUMMARY OF POETRY POSTS RELATED TO WORD-PAIRS: In these 5 collections, we have accumulated more than 30 short poems on this topic, along with explanatory notes and illustrative photos. Mulling over this outpouring  might be a good way to fill a dull winter evening. Join the party!  

2) Here's a list of links to PARODY SONG-LYRICS based on word-pairs found in posts on our companion blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense".

 In some cases the original tune used for the song-base of the satire might not be obvious to the reader, so we have listed them all below. 

Pairs                                                "Words"(Beegees)

Alliterative Binomials #1,#2          "The Elements" (Tom Lehrer)

Rhyming Binomials #1,#2              "The Elements"

(Re)duplications Lesson, #1,#2     "The Elements"

Formulaic Pleonastic-Legalistic      "Supercalifragilistic ...)

      Doublets

3) Here's a link to a sequence of WORDPLAY-DISPLAYS about word-pairs,  as  featured on archived blog-posts on "Daily Illustrated Nonsense". Follow the links at the bottom of each post to progress on this journey.

Lexicon of word-pairs                                 23 slides

   (binomial phrases, reduplications, legal doublets)

4) Here's a list of links to photo-collages dealing with pairs (couples), as  featured in our archived blog-posts. (Each "composite" displays 6-11 photos)

Portraits of couples -- standard photos           5 composites 

Couples -- background-subtracted                  5 composites

DEC 24, CATALOG of DOGGEREL: Neighbourly POLITICAL PARODY ("The Prez says")

 

please see additional photos at the bottom of this post

1) Here's a list of links to collections of intriguing POEMS, usually accompanied by illustrations, on political satire that can be found in posts on this blog. The shorter 'terse verses' of 1 or 2 stanzas are enumerated; the titles of additional longer poems with 3 stanzas or more ('brief sagas') are noted specifically in this tabulation.

 For the larger collections, grouped in multiple sets, you can follow further links at the bottom of the primary post to proceed from 'part #1' to the next set on that topic.

A Term of Endirement #1                    8

                                     #2                    8

                                    #3                    8

                                    #4                    8 + "The Dacha: Mar-a-Lago"

                                    

Prolongation              #1                     8

                                   #2                      8                         

                                   #3                      8  

Cabinet Confirmation                          9

Presidential Palinku                           10

Gun Control                                       7 + "Bipolar Illness"

SUMMARY OF POETRY-POSTS RELATED TO 'AMERICAN SATIRE': In these 10 collections, we have accumulated more than 80 of our poems, of length 3 to 10 lines each. Mulling over this assemblage of 400 lines of verse might be a good way to fill a dull winter evening. Join the party!  

2) Here's a list of links to SONG-LYRICS based on political satire found in posts on our companion blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense".

 In some cases the original tune used for the song-base of the satire might not be obvious to the reader, so we have listed them all below. 

Ballad of Giuliani               "The Ballad of Davy Crockett"

Brennan's Tweet                "Let It Be"  

Get Me Roger Stone           "Heart of Gold"

Indiana Song                      "Annie's Song"

Jailhouse Now                    "In the Jailhouse Now"

Kooky Presidential Views   "Good King Wenceslas"

Rosenstein                          "Galveston"

Vlad Putin's Blogger           "The Frozen Logger"

3) Here's a list of links to WORDPLAY-DISPLAYS based on anagrams (letter scrambles) for key phrases dealing with US political issues, as  featured in posts in the archives of this blog -- "Edifying Nonsense".

Each of the enumerated posts consist of a collection of slides showing wordplay on a variety of topics; the number of posts is displayed for each topic-based collection.

A Very Stable Genius                          3 posts, over 300 anagrams

E-L-E-C-T-I-O-N F-R-A-U-D Contest    4 posts, over 200 anagrams

The Sister-Cities Anagram Initiative  1 post, 90 anagrams

flight of the kite

DEC 23, CATALOG of DOGGEREL: NATURAL WORLD / ENVIRONMENT ("Mother Nature's Voice")

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY, U.P. !!!

tri-colored heron

tri-colored heron, immature

1) Here's a list of links to collections of intriguing POEMS, usually accompanied by illustrations, on nature and the environment that can be found in posts on this blog. The shorter 'terse verses' of 1 or 2 stanzas are enumerated; the titles of additional longer poems with 3 stanzas or more ('brief sagas') are noted specifically in this tabulation.

 For the larger collections, grouped in multiple sets, you can follow further links at the bottom of the primary post to proceed from 'part #1' to the next set on that topic.

Amphibians                          8

Birdlore       #1                    8

                    #2                     8                         

                    #3                     2 + "Avian Digestion"; "Domestic Turkeys"

The Charleston garden           7

Garden intruders                 8

Geysers                                5

Insects      #1                       8

                  #2                      8 

                  #3                      3 + "Clothes Moths"

Invertebrates, other                      6

Mammalian wildlife #1        8

                                #2        8

                                 #3        7 + "Aegean Cat"

Planet-saving verse  #1       8

                                   #2       6 + "Walrus and Carpenter"

Reptiles                  #1         8

                                #2         8

                               #3         4

Trees    #1                          8

             #2                           6 + "Palmetto Trees"

Waterfowl     #1                  8

                      #2                   8

                      #3                  8

                       #4                  8

                       #5                  8 + "Cormorant Rookery"; "Life as a Loon" 

SUMMARY OF POETRY-POSTS RELATED TO NATURE/the ENVIRONMENT:

 In these 26 collections, we have accumulated 190 of our poems, of average length 6+ lines each, along with plenty of explanatory notes and illustrative photos; mulling over this assemblage of twelve hundred lines of doggerel might be a good way to fill a dull winter evening. Join the party!  

2) Here's a list of links to  PARODY SONG-LYRICS about nature and the environment found in posts on our companion blog "Daily Illustrated Nonsense".

 In some cases the original tune used for the song-base of the satire might not be obvious to the reader, so we have listed them all below. 

Carolina Winter Morning           "Carolina in the Morning"

Coach the Nestlings                   "Teach Your Children"  

Dietary Notes                             "Mairzy Doats"

Global Roasting can be set aside      "Chestnuts Roasting ..."

Pen of Rabbits                            "Men of Harlech"

Polyvinyl for Millenia                  "Carolina in the Morning"

Star-Nosed Mole                         "Heart and Soul"

Three Bears in our Hot-Tub        "Three Coins in the Fountain" 

Tiptoe Through Ripe Berries       "Tiptoe through the Tulips"

View of Earth                               "Book of Love"

Yew-phoric                                  "Hot Blooded"

Zombie Cockroach                       "Boney Fingers"

3) Here's a list of links to PHOTO-COLLAGES dealing with nature and the environment, as  featured in posts in the archives of "Daily Edifying Nonsense". (Each "composite" displays 5-11 photos)

American white ibis

anoles in the Carolina suburbs

backyard broad-headed skinks

brown pelicans

bunnies on the trail

Canada geese

Carolina lowcountry miscellany

crepuscular rendez-vous

egrets (mixed) vying at the spillway

elephant seals: a peek

great blue herons at Toronto's Don Valley

great egrets, sunny Toronto afternoon

green anole pole-dancer 

mute swans

lowcountry hunting: action-photos of great egrets

photo-analysis: flight of the great blue heron

resurgent sea otters

snowy egrets

talking heads, avian, mammalian, and other

Swan Lake / Iris Gardens: tranquil views

Swan Lake / Iris Gardens: action photos

trumpeter swans

wildlife of the Carolina lowcountry (1 and 2)