clever pome - Wordsmith.org

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I like to keep a kind of "commonplace book" - only instead of writing the things I discover in a book with blank pages (which I used to do), I now copy items into a file in my compuker called "Quotable Quotes." I recently rediscovered this excellent pome, in a pile of pieces of paper destined to be so transcribed. Figgered fellow wordies might enjoy it....I found it posted on the Lonely Planet's discussion board, the Thorn Tree, by someone called "lady fuschia" - in response to a discussion about worst-latrine experiences while travelling - 'tis very clever, methinks:

a pal o� mine, who is not me,
has spectacles required to see.
while at a bus-trip toilet stop
in india, he sadly dropped
them down the pit. it was not clean
(not flushable, see what i mean?)
but he�d no choice - he had to sink
his arm in that atrocious stink
to find the glasses. what a drama!
and what a diahorreahrama!
he searched till he was shoulder-deep
then - praise the lord!, hear jesus weep! -
his fingers wrapped around the glasses
soaked in soil from others� asses.
he pulled them out, but - oh to think! -
there was no water in the sink,
the bus was leaving, what to do?
both arm and glasses caked in poo!
so, thus encrusted, he returned
and took his seat, and thus was spurned
by fellow travellers, faeces-leary:
his view that day was somewhat smeary.

Methinks
Pome stinks!

Oh! Great! Now every time I see someone wearing those chains that hold glasses on I will think of that poor man! Yeaccchhhh!

I searched in Wordplay and Fun and don't see that much has ever been discussed about the poems of Ogden Nash. He is a particular favorite of mine.

Here's my all-time fave:

Sure, deck your lower limbs in pants,
Yours are the limbs, my sweeting.
You look divine as you advance --
Have you seen yourself retreating?

Have you seen yourself retreating?

hee hee! But t'ain't necessarily so....I used to work at a historic site here in Kingston (Fort Henry, for any as may have visited) and the gift shop girls (of which I was one) were required to wear kilts (and nylons, even on steenkin' hot days - it was a bit of a bitch). We had a change room and on a cooler day towards the end of one summer I was wearing jeans and had changed into them to go home. I was walking out of the fort with a male colleague (the only male working in the gift shops - in the military store), and we passed some soldiers doin' their drill thang. My colleague told me I should wiggle my arse at them; I said, "Why? I'm not wearing my kilt...." He said, "Exactly!"

Trousies certainly do add, ahem, definition....

CB, one of the sites in the link Dr. Bill posted features Nash poems (thanks for posting that piece, by the way--Sweeting has a special meaning for me). I'll post the link here as well--look for Candy is Dandy.
http://www.wolinskyweb.net/word.htm

Thanks, Jackie!

Here's one I don't remember ever reading, which I found on that website.

Pretty Halcyon Days
by Ogden Nash

How pleasant to sit on the beach,
On the beach, on the sand, in the sun,
With ocean galore within reach,
And nothing at all to be done!
No letters to answer,
No bills to be burned,
No work to be shirked,
No cash to be earned,
It is pleasant to sit on the beach
With nothing at all to be done!
How pleasant to look at the ocean,
Democratic and damp; indiscriminate;
It fills me with noble emotion
To think I am able to swim in it.
To lave in the wave,
Majestic and chilly,
Tomorrow I crave;
But today it is silly.
It is pleasant to look at the ocean;
Tomorrow, perhaps, I shall swim in it.

How pleasant to gaze at the sailors.
As their sailboats they manfully sail
With the vigor of vikings and whalers
In the days of the vikings and whale.
They sport on the brink
Of the shad and the shark;
If its windy they sink;
If it isn't, they park.
It is pleasant to gaze at the sailors,
To gaze without having to sail.

How pleasant the salt anesthetic
Of the air and the sand and the sun;
Leave the earth to the strong and athletic,
And the sea to adventure upon.
But the sun and the sand
No contractor can copy;
We lie in the land
Of the lotus and poppy;
We vegetate, calm and aesthetic,
On the beach, on the sand, in the sun.

The Wasp
by Ogden Nash

The wasp and all his numerous family
I look upon as a major calamity.
He throws open his nest with prodigality,
But I distrust his waspitality.

Well, I can definitely say this bespectacled lady would prefer to be blind than to do that! I would even prefer to spend another $300 on my very expensive graduated bifocal spectacles!

"Faeces-leary." I love it.

There are a number of poems I know that are bit bawdy. I think I read one by Auden once about "taking a dump" or something like that. (It was pretty good, I thought, but it just didn't stick with me.)

One of my favorites is not about feces, but is still a bawdy bit.
http://users.crocker.com/~lwm/theboys.html

Don't recall if I've posted that pointer before, but it's pretty good.

Another ribald one - and I don't remember where I read this or who wrote it - is

"A woman is a book, and often found,
to prove far better in the sheets than bound.
No wonder, then, some students take delight,
above all things to study in the night."

There's a neat one by cummings I read years ago that starts out
"may I feel said he
I'll squeal said she
just once said he
its fun said she"

and so on.

The "have you seen yourself retreating" line reminds me of another one whose author I don't recall.

"Husbands would not go a-whoring,
they'd stay with the wives they adore,
if wives were but half as alluring,
after the act as before."

k

I loved the poem about the beach. I have always said that spending the day on the beach is one of the few socially accepted reasons to do nothing and get away with it. [missing my mid-winter gettaway to the sun-sand-palm trees dreadfully-e]

We vegetate, calm and aesthetic,
On the beach, on the sand, in the sun.

I'm with you on that, Consuelo. The beach holds a very special place in my heart (and is the one thing I miss most since moving to Oregon).

What is it about Ogden Nash's writing that we find so charming? His wit? His inventiveness? His words that almost rhyme???

For example:
Our daily diet grows odder and odder --
It's a wise child that knows its fodder.

Yer right, Coffeebean - there's just something about his way with language....

No Doctors Today, Thank You

They tell me that euphoria is the feeling of feeling wonderful; well, today I feel euphorian,
Today I have the agility of a Greek god and the appetite of a Victorian.
Yes, today I may even go forth without my galoshes;
Today I am a swashbuckler, would anybody like me to buckle any swashes?
This is my euphorian day,
I will ring welkins and before anybody answers I will run away.
I will tame me a caribou
And bedeck it with marabou.
I will pen me my memoirs.
Ah youth, youth! What Euphorian days them was!
I wasn't much of a hand for the boudoirs,
I was generally to be found where the food was.
Does anybody want any flotsam?
I've gotsam.
Does anybody want any jetsam?
I can getsam.
I can play 'Chopsticks' on the Wurlitzer,
I can speak Portugese like a Berlitzer.
I can don or doff my shoes without tying or untying the laces because I am wearing moccasins,
And I practically know the difference between serums and antitoccasins.
Kind people, don't think me purse-proud, don't set me down as vainglorious,
I'm just a little euphorious.

I can't remember the whole thing(it was in 9th grade, after all...)

"torpor and sloth, torpor and sloth,
these are the cooks that spoil the broth.
slother and torp, slother and torp,
the directest of bee-line ambitions can warp."

it was a regional speech contest in Nebraska, about nineteen-seventy-something...

I like Ogden Nash both for his words that almost rhyme and for his almost words that do rhyme.

The panther is like a leopard,
except that it hasn't been peppered.
Should you behold a panther crouch,
prepare to say ouch.
Better yet, if called by a panther,
don't anther.

ModestGoddess
Your kilt vs jeans story reminded me of the story of the directors and writers of the Dick Van Dyck Show who were told that Mary Tyler Moore was lovely but the censors thought they should "watch the undercupping". With some embarressment the it was finally explained that undercupping was the way that her snug fitting skirts cupped under the buttocks. So they all looked and decided that the censors were right, they should watch it. And they continued to enjoy watching it.

Anyone remember an old New Yorker cartoon that showed a store at a corner lot, and its sign on one window read "Candy is dandy," and it was decorated as a candy store window, and the other window read "Liquor is quicker" and was clearly a liquor store. The caption at the bottom said, "At the corner of Ogden and Nash."

But sex won't rot your teeth.

Could we have medical confirmation of that, please?

Bingley

Um--Bingley, are you asking for volunteers? Or volunteering yourself, perhaps? One must have empirical data, you know. <eg>

I assumed, perhaps erroneously, that there was already a large body of experimental data from which conclusions could be drawn.

Bingley

Lots of experimental data
Three out of four dentists prefer . . . ?