A Circus of Poems
by Richard Lederer
Here is a feast of language gymnastics from our friend and fellow verbivore, a term which he himself invented. Enjoy the saliva of syllables as they roll off the tongue. J.Wolf
From alpha to omega,
You can bet the alphabet,
Like a painting done by Degas,
Will leap and pirouette.
See dancing words, entrancing words,
Sterling words unfurling.
Watch prancing words, enhancing words,
Whirling, twirling, swirling.
Let’s hop right on the bandwagon and face the music of our language. I don’t wish to chime in on your life and harp on the subject. I just want to pull out all the stops and strike a responsive chord in you. May the following be music to your ears:
The Bandwagon
Now the tent grows dark, and the crowd grows hush.
Then the spotlight shines, and the space grows lush
With the cymbals' clash and the tinkled heat,
The triangle's ting and the snare drum's beat,
As our hungry hearts and the empty air
Fill to the brim with a brassy blare.
Our jaws a-droop and our eyes a-light
And our cheeks ablaze at the gorgeous sight:
All golden and crimson and purple and blue --
A calliope dream that we never knew:
With the chest-deep pulse of the kettle drums,
Into the ring the bandwagon comes.
Then the wha-wha-wha of the slide trombone,
And the pitter-boink-boink of the xylophone,
And the umpa umpa umpa umps
Of tubas kissed by men with mumps,
And the twang and the wang and the whacka whacka whack
Of banjo wheels on a circus track.
Ah, the rattle and rhyme of the music's time
Brim our hungry hearts with a song sublime!
Now hear the music of some letter-perfect verse, with many words composed entirely of letter sounds. Keep in mind that the same letter twice in a row sounds like a plural. For example, II means "eyes."
Translation
YURYY Why you are wise
Is EZ to C Is easy to see.
U should B called You should be called
"XLNC." "Excellency."
U XEd NE You exceed any
MT TT. Empty tease.
I NV how U I envy how you
XL with EE. Excel with ease.
What do you call a naked grizzly? A bare bear. And what do you call a pony with a sore throat? A hoarse horse. Homophones are clusters of words that are each spelled differently but that sound exactly the same.
Hears a rye peace eye maid up inn my idol thyme. Aye rote it four yew two sea Howe homophones Cannes seam sew whiled from there knows write too they're tows. With pried, eye no it will knot boar ewe. Its meant two bee red allowed:
A Bazaar Tail
One night a knight on a hoarse horse
Rode out upon a road.
This male wore mail for war and would
Explore a wood that glowed.
His tale I'll tell from head to tail.
I'll write his rite up right.
A hidden site our hero found,
A sight that I shall cite.
With woe he shouted, "Whoa!" as rain
Without a break did reign.
To brake, he pulled the rein, and like
A shattered pane, felt pain.
The poor knight met a witch, which made
Sweat pour from every pore.
He'd never seen a scene like that.
His sore heart couldn't soar.
Then they a game for truffles played,
In which he mined her mind.
To prove who was the better bettor
And find who should be fined.
He won one twice, he won two, too.
To grate on her felt great.
To wrest the rest, he went for four,
And, at the fore, ate eight.
Due to her loss, the mourning witch,
'Midst morning mist and dew,
Her truffles missed. I know no way,
Do I, to weigh her rue.
Our knight began to reel, for real.
The world whirled, so to speak.
All the days of the week his sole soul felt
The dizzy daze of the weak.
Our heir to knighthood gave it up.
He felt the fare not fair.
His wholly holy sword soared up
As he threw it through the air.
The bell has tolled, I'm told. The hour
To end our tale draws nigh.
Without ado, I bid adieu,
So by your leave, bye-bye.
Often, the more demanding the restrictions, the more fun I have making a poem. I had an exhilarating time writing this little ditty, in which each of the eleven lines is composed of just the six letters in the name Daniel:
An idle
Lead-in
Ad line:
DANIEL,
Nailed
In deal
(i.e., land
In dale),
Led in a
Denial
And lie.
In letter play, beheadment is the lopping off of the initial letters of a word. Gaze in wonder as, one at a time, the letters in prelate disappear from the front of the word:
The prelate did relate a tale
We stayed up late and ate our meal,
"Te Deum" sang in key of e.
Ladies and gentlemen! Boys and Girls! Wordsters of all ages! Our circus is no dog-and-pony show -- and to prove it, please turn your attention to the hippodrome track engirding the sawdust rings. Forget all the hype and hoopla, and fix your eyeballs upon the greatest cavalcade of animals ever brought together!:
Click on this: next column
Paraders of the Lost Aardvark
All of Solomon's processions
And Croesus' gold and Trump's possessions
Cannot rival half the pomp
Of animals that march and romp.
What soul among us does not thrill
To a fiery hoop and a lion's skill,
The chittering of a monkey's laugh,
The mottled grace of a slim giraffe?
Who can be deaf to the ponderous sound
Of pachyderms that shake the ground,
Leathery monarchs lifting high
Their trumpet trunks to canvas sky?
Who is so proud as not to feel
A secret awe before a seal
That keeps such slick and moist repose
Spinning a ball upon its nose?
Who can forget a mighty horse
Capering through its circle course?
Who is so old who fails to heed
A lady in pink on a milk-white steed?
Being a marsupial, a mother kangaroo carries her young in her pouch. Kangaroo words do the same thing: Within their letters they conceal a smaller version of themselves -- a joey, which is what a kangaroo's offspring is called. The joey must be the same part of speech as the mother kangaroo, and its letters must appear in the same order.
The special challenge of kangaroo words is that the joey must be a synonym; it must have the same meaning as the fully-grown word. A plagiarist is a kind of liar. On the job, your supervisor is your superior. I tried to summon as many kangaroo words as I could to hop through this poem:
Ab-Original Words
Hop right up to those kangaroo words,
Slyly concealing whiz-bangaroo words,
Accurate synonyms, cute and acute,
Hidden diminutive words, so minute.
Lurking inside of myself you'll find me.
Just as inside of himself you'll find he.
Feel your mind blossom; feel your mind bloom:
Inside a catacomb's buried a tomb.
Kangaroo words are precocious and precious,
Flourishing, lush words that truly refresh us.
We're nourished; they nurse, elevate, and elate us.
We're so satisfied when their synonyms sate us.
Kangaroo words both astound us and stun.
They’re so darned secure that we're sure to have fun!
With charisma and charm, they're a letter-play wonder.
They dazzle and daze with their treasures, down under.
Here follows my favorite animal procession. I was inspired by Dr. William Archibald Spooner, who gave us so many wonderful tips of the slung – oops: slips of the tongue. Through his tang tongueled whiz and witdom, the famous Oxford professor has bequeathed our language the word spoonerism, meaning a humorous reversal of consonant or vowel sounds:
Dr. Spooner's Animal Act
Welcome, ladies; welcome gents.
Here's an act that's so in tents:
An absolute sure-fire parade,
A positive pure-fire charade --
With animals weak and animals mild,
Creatures meek and creatures wild,
With animals all in a row.
We hope that you enjoy the show:
Gallops forth a curried horse,
Trotting through a hurried course.
Ridden by a loving shepherd
Trying to tame a shoving leopard.
Don't think I'm a punny phony,
But next in line's a funny pony.
On its back a leaping wizard,
Dancing with a weeping lizard.
Watch how that same speeding rider
Holds aloft a reading spider.
Now you see a butterfly
Bright and nimbly flutter by,
Followed by a dragonfly,
As it drains its flagon dry.
Step right up; see this mere bug
Drain the drink from his beer mug.
Lumbers forth a honey bear,
Fur as soft as bunny hair.
Gaze upon that churning bear,
Standing on a burning chair.
Gently patting a mute kitten,
On each paw a knitted mitten.
Watch as that small, running cat
Pounces on a cunning rat.
See a clever, heeding rabbit
Who's acquired a reading habit,
Sitting on his money bags,
Reading many bunny mags,
Which tickle hard his funny bone,
As he talks on his bunny phone.
He is such a funny beast,
Gobbling down his bunny feast.
Gasp in awe as winking seals
Sit atop three sinking wheels.
Don't vacillate. An ocelot
Will oscillate a vase a lot.
There's a clever dangling monkey
And a stubborn, mangling donkey
And -- a gift from our Dame Luck --
There waddles in a large lame duck.
That's Dr. Spooner's circus show.
With animals all in a row,
(As you can see, we give free reign
To this metrical refrain.)
Now hops a dilly of a frog
Followed by a frilly dog.
Hear that hoppy frog advise:
"Time's fun when you're having flies!"
Life is a circus where thousands throng but none can stay. The only permanence of the circus is its impermanence. Each time the Greatest Show on Earth leaves a city, it tears itself down and piles itself onto railroad cars. Not so with the Word Circus.
Nothing now to mark the spot
But a littered vacant lot.
Sawdust in a heap, and where
The center ring stood, grass worn bare.
But remains the alphabet,
Ready to leap and pirouette.
May the spangled letters soar
In your head forever more.
May all your days be circuses.
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Richard Lederer (born May 26, 1938) is an American author, speaker, and teacher best known for his books on word play and the English language and his use of oxymorons. He has written more than 30 books, including Anguished English, Get Thee to a Punnery, Crazy English, A Man of My Words, The Word Circus, The Miracle of Language, The Cunning Linguist, and Word Wizard, and Presidential Trivia. And as of late, books on cats and dogs. |
