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Some poems receive praise only grudging.
Still others are praised despite fudging.
For better or worse
It isn't the verse
But the people who are doing the judging. :)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Look at me, look at me, look at me!
I’m always mistreated, you’ll see
I whine and pout,
Stamp my feet, act out
And repeated shout, look at me.
Ignored: not feted or praised
My virtuousity should leave them dazed
Incredible, quick
Witty and slick.
How come the carpel’s aren’t phased?
Blue ribbons are mine to command
I should be lauded ” best in the land”
So where is the toast?
I deserve it, I boast
A ribbon, a parade and a band!
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Pooh-Bah
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My shoulders got tight 'cos I'm stressed.
These cutbacks they made me depressed.
Now I'm all aglow,
took a walk in the snow
I can float up o'er all the rest.
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Look at me, look at me, look at me!
I swear, Of Troy, this is, perhaps, your best limerick [say nothing of multiple limericks] yet, certainly the best that I have seen!
It does seem that I bring out the very best in you, however ironic that may seem to some.
If I can be the foil and the fuel of your talent, Of Troy, then I am grateful for the privilege. We are all the better for it.
Flay on, Of Troy.
I seem to be the crucible, if not the very chemistry, of your talent. And, perhaps, yours of mine.
Courage is not the only quality forged in extremis. Perhaps acuity of mind, and fiery focus too.
How many ingots have sprung from this spleen?
May your anger roil
Your hatred coil
To bring your talents
To a boil.
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Producing a play is no sonnet
'Cause there are so many troops working on it.
When the lead blows his top
'Cause he's missing a prop
The director cries "Get a grip on it!"
Today's word of the day is "grip": "A general assistant on a movie set responsible for handling production equipment, such as setting up and moving camera dollies, lighting, etc." [per Anu]
I wonder who the "most essential" person in the movie-making business will be in tomorrow's AWAD?
It probably won't be the "superstar". Everyone already knows who the superstar is. Just ask the superstar:
"I'm the most essential person by far",
Said the "B" flick's male superstar.
"I don't say a bunch
I just shoot and punch
And smash up a brand new, hot car."
"Everyone knows that it's me",
Said the leading lady, coyly.
"My wardrobe is scant
My lines I just pant
And that's what the boys come to see."
New version for themilum's discerning taste:
"Everyone knows that it's me",
Said the leading lady, coyly.
"My wardrobe so sexy
Makes the star go all flexy
Thumpin' dudes to impress me, you see."
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enthusiast
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I can't get that local Rhode Island town name out of my head when it comes to limericks, so I'll give you one that my son wrote for an English class when he was in 5th grade.
A rhino from Mozambique,
searched the wide world for a leek.
She had no success,
but you must confess,
Her diet was quite unique
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Ah so, Owlbow, I have insinuated myself into being the sole judge and jury of the limericks, doggerel, and poems, posted on this thread. Please tell your son his poem is in the top ten list of submissions by folks under age fifty. Good luck! 
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I'll give you one that my son wrote for an English class when he was in 5th grade.
You should get your son to post his limericks here, Owlbow. Before long [if not already] he will be showing the rest of us a rhyme or two.
Seriously, please tell him we loved his limerick, and we would welcome more. He has a talent for it.
With themilum as the chief judge of limericks around here, he can be certain he will always come out ahead of at least one limerick poster -- c'est moi. :)
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journeyman
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I shudder to say that it's true,
But I found my mistake on review:
When I wrote the word "rhyme" -
In fact at the time
I realize that "meter" was due.
TRANSLATION: I meant to say "meter" not "rhyme" but it didn't, in fact, rhyme.
8-)
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Pooh-Bah
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I meant to say "meter" not "rhyme" but it didn't, in fact, rhyme.But it *did* fit the meter.  Meter didn't rhyme, rhyme did meter. Rhyme rhymed, meter didn't. There's a riddle in there somewhere.
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Meter didn't rhyme, rhyme did meter. Rhyme rhymed, meter didn't. There's a riddle in there somewhere.
If her meter starts tripping the moment you meet her, your meter won't matter, nor will your rhyme.
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A gaffer sets the lighting
To make the scene exciting
For lead and mate
To consummate
Their love in full moonlighting.
AWAD word today is "gaffer"
"The head of the electrical department responsible for the lighting setup on a movie or television set." [per Anu]
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There once was a movie set staffer Whose resumé no one sought after. When he worked with the lights, 'Twas a horrible sight - Shattered bulbs, broken glass - he's a gaffer.
I'm using the word gaffer to mean both the guy in charge of lights on a set, and also "one who gaffs", per the following definition:
gaffe also gaff, n:
1. A clumsy social error; a faux pas: “The excursion had in his eyes been a monstrous gaffe, a breach of sensibility and good taste” (Mary McCarthy).
2. A blatant mistake or misjudgment.
(dictionary.com)
So I took the liberty to create a secondary meaning of "gaffer", namely "one who makes blatant mistakes or misjudgments". 
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Gaffe/gaffer. A thing of beauty, AniamL.
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Thank you, sir. It seems that all the Vergil reading over the last few years has instilled (or installed? interesting they should be synonyms) a sense of meter in me - I encourage anyone who studies Latin to read at least the first few books of the Aeneid. It's great fun.
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I encourage anyone who studies Latin to read at least the first few books of the Aeneid. It's great fun.O Muse! the causes and the crimes relate;
What goddess was provok'd, and whence her hate;
For what offense the Queen of Heav'n began
To persecute so brave, so just a man;
Involv'd his anxious life in endless cares,
Expos'd to wants, and hurried into wars!The Aeneid, by Virgil [Vergil to those who read Latin], Written 19 B.C.E Translated by John Dryden from Book I For more samples: http://classics.mit.edu/Virgil/aeneid.1.i.html Thanks for the recommendation. It's fun even in translation. Which makes me wonder: How faithful is the translation to the original? And, if the translation is as meritorious as this one obviously is, what credit does the translator receive for his/her labors? Some people think that Edward Fitzgerald eclipsed Omar in his translation of the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam". I can't offer an opinion on either question as I can't read either Latin or Arabic. [Wish I could. Admire those who do.] http://www.okonlife.com/
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I have to confess, I am curious about tomorrow's essential person working on a movie set.
We've had "grip", and "gaffer", could it be "best boy"?*
Every movie set has a best boy
Who the gaffer will quickly deploy
To light the stage
Or discreetly engage
The siren as her boy toy.
P.S. Even if "best boy" isn't the word tomorrow, it gives me another shot at "gaffer" today. :)
Or, could it be the "cinematographer", I wonder?
The "cinematographer" is certainly the deserving subject of an AWAD -- and also of an ALAD:
A movie’s cinematographer
Is the story’s videobiographer.
He creates each scene
To fill the screen
To become a cinemaOscarographer.
* Yep. The AWAD for Day 3 is best boy:
best boy (best boi) noun
The first assistant to the gaffer (head electrician) of a film crew. [Apparently borrowed from the sailing terminology.] per Anu
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I'm creating a new post in recognition of the most essential furniture involved in movie-making.
Essential to the rise of a star
If she really wants to go far
Is the casting couch
Where the producer will vouch
Her performance deserves an Oscar.
The "casting couch" will never be honored with an AWAD, but it will always play a seminal role behind the scenes.
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This stage is Blacked-Out for Casting Interviews.
Regular auditions will resume tomorrow -- if the part isn't filled tonite. ;)
Actually, this post was the result of a glitch [same post repeated 2x in error]. Hmm. Perhaps white-out would be better than "Black-out". :)
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OK, let's lighten things up a little bit with a new soundtrack. :)
When you need a sound that sounds real
To add "Varrump" to the reel
You call for a foley
And "Gosh! Holy Moley!"
It's a sound that sounds surreel!
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How about a limerick for the most unessential, essential person involved in movie-making:
the critic.
Every movie has a critic. If there weren't any critics, there wouldn't be any reviews. And if there weren't any reviews, there wouldn't be many views.
So, you see, any kind of criticism is welcome criticism.
You could say a damning critic is their own worst enemy. :)
A "Smash!" isn't a "Smash!" without news
So a critic is our ticket to views.
If they love us, we love 'em
If they hate us, we love 'em
'Cause nothing succeeds like reviews.
"Smash" brings to mind the work of the "stuntman".
Let's hear it for the stuntman
Who'll risk life and limb if he can
Add a thrill, as the star
Reclines safely afar
Bloody make-up streaking his tan.
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Today's AWAD is stuntman so I've got today's ALAD off 'cause I did "stuntman" yesterday.
So why not a little soft shoe?
I know I'm going to regret this because a poet is never supposed to poke fun at poets who poke fun at him. There's no rhyme or reason to it. I guess you could call it "poetic injustice", or maybe it's "poetic justice", depending on your point of view.
Besides, this is not an official ALAD. It's just an ALAD which has fallen off the beaten path. [And I know I'm going to take my usual beating for it anyway. But I hope not 'cause it's not supposed to be taken seriously. Seriously.]
There's always a critic tut-tuttering
Any limerick with a "sniff" "sniff" of smuttering.
If there's no whiff of smut
You're not out of the rut
You're just back to head butt rebuttering.
OK, I'm weak, but it's the end of the week. So scoff 'til you cough, it's my ALAD day off, and my rhyme is on my own time. :)
Come to think of it, I think I've got a stuntman limerick for today after all, and I think I'd better get it off my chest. That way I'll just get one beating for this dual post, not one now, and another one later. :)
There are hidden rewards for the stuntman
Who stands in for the leading man
He'll take every punch
He's always there in a crunch
He'll even double for an adorable fan.
BTW I'm kinda hoping that the theme for Anu's AWAD next week will be the most essential people in the healthcare industry. That way we could use some of the lessons we learned this week to warm up for next week. For instance:
You should always take your medicine
It will help to cleanse the sin
Of being so smutty
Or rutty or nutty
You belong in the "Weekly Themes" bin.
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I want to write a limerick about "the beaten path".
I've got to tell you, this is the toughest house in the land to catch a break. You know what they say about New York: "If you can make it here, you can make it anywhere." Well, that lyricist never tried his luck at AWADtalk, that's for sure.
But, you know, some of the best mentors are the sternest task masters. It may feel like flogging when you're dogging or you're slogging, but these wordtaskers could be your best friends in disguise. Does that come as a surprise? It did to me.
And who are the sternest taskmasters of all, if not our enemies, who want us not to succeed, but to fail. Our friends accept us as we are. But our enemies demand of us more than we are.
So that's why I am indebted to all my friends at AWADtalk. But, most of all, I am indebted to my enemies. My friends I love. My enemies I salute.
The beaten path can beat you up, or beat you down. But it can never beat you out.
The well worn path to success
Is not the path you might guess
It isn't the wear
That will lead you there
It's the wear you surmount in distress.
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"So that's why I am indebted to all my friends at AWADtalk. But, most of all, I am indebted to my enemies.Well maybeso Plutarch, but as the self-annoited judge of the poems posted here you might best learn to suck up to your friends as well as your so-called enemies. Thus far I have found your poems tainted with suppressed spite and self-righteous indignation. Perhaps if you would spread some of that compassion that you feel for your detractors towards me who judges, you might flatter the me into seeing your scant doggerel in a more favorable light. And perhaps if you had condescended and flattered your enemies they would be your friends today. But I doubt it.
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Perhaps if you would spread some of that compassion that you feel for your detractors towards me who judges
You have me on the horns of a dilemma, themilum.
If I flatter you, however deserving the praise, there will be those who see you, as "the self-annointed judge", as amenable to flattery, which, of course, you are not.
And, if I accede not to your valued advice by acclaiming not your talents and your virtues, then you will judge me recalcitrant and animated by the negative emotions you have already perceived in my limericks, so that even if I should labor to extirpate from my rhyme any trace of angst, you will judge my output still tainted by ignoble pride, and your judging of my rhyme will be the harsher for it.
But I find myself in no such quandry in accepting your prudent advice that I "condescend" and "flatter" my enemies.
I acknowledge the merits of my 'enemies', themilum, but it is not with "condescension" that I do so, but with alacrity and joyfulness for the gifts they share with us, nor is it with "flattery" that I acknowledge them, but, instead, with sincerity and gratitude.
How I might feel personally about my 'enemies', themilum, has absolutely nothing to do with their wordsmithing or poems or intellectual insights or scholarship or meditations on high principles, so long as that flowering of mind is not befouled by some unprovoked invective or innuendo or injustice directed against me personally, or against anyone else.
For what does the pure essence of a sound have to do with the instrument which gave vent to it, if one is attentive only to the sound itself?
Besides, themilum, my 'enemies" are my 'enemies' in single quotes only. They are only my 'enemies' because they judge me their enemy.
I have no enemies here, themilum. And I am indebted, as I have said, to those who have denounced me as their enemy for they have given me extraordinary cause and ambition to improve myself.
And for that, I salute them.
I can't "defeat" my 'enemies', themilum. Why would I even want to? Like sand in an oyster, they can only bring out the best in me, in every sense of that term.
In any case, they have ever bit as much right to post here peacefully and peaceably as I do -- as you do, as we all do. :)
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And perhaps if you had condescended and flattered your enemies they would be your friends today.Keep your friends clothed and use your enemy's clothier? ********* And, if I accede not to your valued advice by acclaiming not your talents and your virtues, then you will judge me recalcitrant and animated by the negative emotions you have already perceived in my limericks, so that even if I should labor to extirpate from my rhyme any trace of angst, you will judge my output still tainted by ignoble pride, and your judging of my rhyme will be the harsher for it.
- and -
...so long as that flowering of mind is not befouled by some unprovoked invective or innuendo or injustice directed against me personally, or against anyone else.Not to be hyper-critical (or anything similar) but these two statements, even as they bounce off one another, carry the weight of an 'ell-uv-a-lot-a assumptions. ******** I have no enemies here, themilum.Given this to be true, doncha think the subject would be better served approached in the place where *they are? Just a thought. 
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Not to be hyper-critical (or anything similar)
You're not.
I never said I was perfect [in my meter or my manners -- both can always be improved, and there is certainly no shortage of people around here to give me instruction in both -- hey, that's a joke, but it does seem something of a mystery to me that my conduct is the only conduct that would benefit from improvement].
It seems I am caught in Goethe's "push-pull" [brought to us yesterday by BY in "nolens volens"], musick.
I am as determined not to be "pushed" away unjustly, as I am "pulled" to meet the high expectations for improvement of the many good people I respect around here, including you.
Those who want me to succeed in this endeavour are more of an encouragement to me than those who want me to fail.
To leave after trying so hard to succeed would be as much of a failure as reverting to the vicious cycle which never succeeded for anyone before.
I will not leave, as a matter of principle, musick. And I will not participate in any further hostilities, as a matter of principle. If there is a winner in this, it isn't me. It's the Board.
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Some passing moods make us furious;
Still others take a turn far more serious.
When filled with such hate
You need to sedate
You are suffering from odium delirious.
Today's AWAD is "odium".
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An enemy, burning with odium
Filled my cold drink with pure sodium.
When I started to dine,
"Yuck, gas!" I repined...
Then I rushed to go find some Imodium.
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odium and repined
A single and a double, AniamL!
You should go for the limerick bicycle ... if you're so inclined.
Re "Imodium":
Dr. Bill [wwh] reports as follows:
This is name of a product of well known pharmaceutical house, a medication to treat diarrhea. Maybe I even prescribed it sixty years ago.
Now, what "enemy" would want to cure you of your verbal diarrhea, AniamL? You would think they would want to give you more of it. :)
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Yeah... I wanted to write "'My stomach!' I repined"... but it didn't scan. I changed it.
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"Gas" is good, AnimiaL. Even the doc isn't bein' pernickety. :)
When your stomach gets that pernickety
Beware a vowel movement limerickety!
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A mom, speech impaired but magnanimous
Took her son to the zoo (twas unanimous).
She asked the zoo lord
Where the fauna was stored;
He said, "Up yours, dolt, here's your damned 'animus'"
Man, that took me a long time and it was pretty weak.
But not as weak (or as interesting) as the following:
A man with a case of the hiccoughs
Cleared snow from a road with a plough.
The job made him dough
So he said, with a cough
"Hold on a sec, none of this rhymes."
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Well, AnimiaL, I am proud
To acclaim your talents uncowed
By nit-picking rules
Which impede such jewels.
The best never follow the crowd.
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Then what might you be, Plutarch, the exception that makes the rule, or the best that was thrown out of the crowd? Nice poem AnimaiL, though, I would have thought that through would have been included for puposes of inclusion.
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the exception that makes the rule
One can be an exception without being exceptional, themilum.
We seem to have more people who take exception to the rules than we have rules or rulers.
It's a good thing we've got your self-annointed judgeship to sort it all out for us. :)
re "the best that was thrown out of the crowd?"
Who was it who first quipped "I've been thrown out of better joints than this!". Probably Groucho Marx.
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Not what you're looking for, but... ****** The Marx Bros. - "Horse Feathers" There's a knock at the door. Baravelli opens the peephole. Baravelli: Who are you? Wagstaff: I'm fine, thanks. Who are you? Baravelli: I'm fine too, but you can't come in unless you give the password. Wagstaff: Well, what is the password? Baravelli: Oh no, you gotta tell me! (pause) Hey, I tell you what I do...I give you three guesses...It's the name of a fish... Wagstaff: Is it Mary? Baravelli: Ha, ha! Atsa no fish! Wagstaff: She isn't? Well, she drinks like one. Let me see...Is it sturgeon? Baravelli: Hey, you're crazy! A sturgeon, he's a doctor cuts you open whena you sick. Now I give you one more chance. Wagstaff: I got it! Haddock! Baravelli: Atsa funny, I gotta haddock too. Wagstaff: What do you take for a haddock? Baravelli: Well now, sometimes I take aspirin, sometimes I takea calomel. Wagstaff: Say, I'd walk a mile for a calomel. Baravelli: You mean chocolate calomel. I like that too, but you no guess it. (Slams door. Wagstaff knocks again. Baravelli opens the peephole again.) Hey, whatsa matta? You no understand English? You can't come in here unless you say swordfish! Now, I give you one more guess.... ******* http://www.whyaduck.com/sounds/wav.htm
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Never even thought about "through", themilum. By the way, nice post subject , plutarch.
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One up on "Who's on First", Musick, brilliant. Thanks, I wonder if the Marx routine originated in vaudeville as well?
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Themilum will sort it all out.
Who could possibly entertain doubt?
He'll drink to first place
Then the rest of the place
'Til his judgeship annoits himself out.
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