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stranger
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stranger
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mind-body, body-mind
Renee Descartes, it's said,
thought that the dactyllic
form should be banned:
"We should not write things so
polysyllabically,
Just use two beats, I think,
therefore iamb."
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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very good: welcome
Love your name. The trickster is a fave of mine as well.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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mind-body, body-mind
Renee Descartes, it's said,
thought that the dactyllic
form should be banned:
"We should not write things so
polysyllabically,
Just use two beats, I think,
therefore iamb."
Back in his era, the Seventeenth century, Smooth alexandrines were Often the way; Playwrights were keen on these Dodecasyllables, As in the tragedies Penned by Corneille.
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stranger
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stranger
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Stippety steppity
My name is Dave, I'm ad-
dicted to dactyl hex-
ameter verse,
My Higher Power in
dodecaincrement
meetings must help me be-
fore it gets worse.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Roboty, noboty,
Doc Isaac Asimov
Taught biochemistry,
Then wrote sci-fi:
"'Para-dichloro-
amino-benzaldehyde ! '
Such a nice lilt to it ! "
Twinkle in eye.
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old hand
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old hand
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Dickety Dockety wofahulicodoc wrote a small ditty on Doc Asimov, using appropriate organochemical endless compoundedness; fits like a glove. Asimov's own suggestion… was to say "Has Him Of" and leave out the H's. http://www.asimovonline.com/asimov_FAQ.html#non-literary1
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Well bless your heart, I'm touched! i do believe that's the first time I've been the object of a Double-Dactyl. (Or any other kind of poem, for that matter.)
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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From November 19, 2008, above! (modified slightly) Zippity Lippity
Catherine DeMedici,
Looking to end the
religious divides,
Issued her Edict so
Idealistically;
Nevertheless many
Lost their poor hides.
Something made me think of Catherine DeMedici a couple weeks ago. I don't even remember now what it was. But I thought: "Aha! A double dactyl could arise from this!" And I began to cogitate. Actually, all I truly remembered about her from my school daze was that she was a ruthless woman and a poisoner. As you can see, after doing a little research, I decided to praise her for her good, yet futile, attempt to bring Catholics and Hugenots together. So you see, wordplay is not only fun but educational. I learned things about her I had not known! Or, to paraphrase minimally, "All I remembered of Catherine de Medici: Ruthless, the woman, Of poisonous tone... So you see, wordplay is Fun, educational; Learned things about her That I had not known!"
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old hand
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old hand
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Well bless your heart, I'm touched! i do believe that's the first time I've been the object of a Double-Dactyl. (Or any other kind of poem, for that matter.)
A small salute perhaps, but a salute nonetheless. I appreciate your contributions to this forum.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Thanks to Pythagoras,
Right-angled triangles
Can be computed with
Relative ease.
Only employ his neat
Trigonometrical
Rule if one angle is
Ninety degrees.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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----please, draw me a sheep----
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old hand
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old hand
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Merrily-scarily
Dear A C Bowden
Constructs all these poems
So effortlessly,
Giving the feeling they're
Extemporaneous -
How that's accomplished's
Enigma to me.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Today's Word-a-Day is "antimetabole" - does that suggest anything to anyone? Like invent one in double-dactyl format?
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Franklin D. Roosevelt
Scribbled: "The Japs will be
Fighting to die if they're
Dying to fight".
Then he deleted this
Antimetabole,
Thinking such rhetoric
Sounded too trite.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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stranger
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stranger
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Higgledy, piggledy,
Prof. Peter Higgs
proposes a boson
with much gravitas.
Called the God Particle,
Quantumechanically
It is the reason
We must go to Mass.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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----please, draw me a sheep----
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Henry Plantagenet,
Angered by Becket, said:
"Would I were rid of that
Turbulent priest!"
Several knights heard his
Antiepiscopal
Words, and the prelate was
Shortly deceased.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Really delightful comment on that historical event. Bravo.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Henry Plantagenet,
Angered by Becket, said:
"Would I were rid of that
Turbulent priest!"
Several knights heard his
Antiepiscopal
Words, and the prelate was
Shortly deceased. "Meddlesome" priest was the way I heard it, but it changes nothing. I tend to pronounce "several" with only two syllables, which would make Line 5 a beat short. Unless you wanted to make it Several knights heard his words
Antiepiscopal...but that only shifts the missing to beat line 7. Maybe make it "Thomas the prelate was..." or some variation. Maybe better still would be to avoid the word "several" altogether. as it's susceptible to alternative pronunciations.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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"Meddlesome" priest was the way I heard it, but it changes nothing. "Turbulent" is the most common version, according to Wikipedia. I tend to pronounce "several" with only two syllables, which would make Line 5 a beat short. The dictionaries generally seem to prefer the three-syllable pronunciation. I think of it as a three-syllable word (even if I don't enunciate the second syllable clearly!).
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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For the sake of completeness, and for what it's worth:
"...this turbulent priest" gets 22,300 Googlehits
"...this troublesome priest" gets 19,800 Ghits
"...this meddlesome priest" shows a mere 6700 Ghits
I wonder what the "real" quotation is.
The only way I know of to avoid the syllable-count ambiguity is to use a different word. That being said, accepting the three-syllable "several," the verse sparkles!
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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The only way I know of to avoid the syllable-count ambiguity is to use a different word.
Antiepiscopal...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Sure! 
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Wofahulicodoc
(Can it be dactylized?)
Often contributes to
Mensopause III,
Thereby augmenting the
Neologistical
Richness of English, I
Think you'll agree.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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From the original post on this thread:
...a nice, concise list of the rules for double dactyls...
(1) The entire poem is a single sentence.
(2) There are two stanzas of four lines each.
(3) All lines except lines four and eight are two dactylic metrical feet in length.
(4) The first line is usually a rhyming nonsense phrase. For example, "Higgledy piggledy."
(5) The second line often, but not always, introduces the topic of the poem. If you are writing about a person, it helps if the name of the person you are writing about is naturally in the form of a double dactyl. For example, "Hans Christian Andersen."
(6) One line within the second stanza (often the sixth line) is a six-syllable, double-dactylic word, usually an adverb or adjective. For example, "Parthenogenesis."
(7) The fourth and eighth lines are not double dactyls. Instead, these lines consist of one dactyl plus a stressed syllable.
(8) The fourth and eighth lines rhyme with one another. Given the special form of the fourth and eight lines as mentioned in the preceding rule, it follows that the final, rhyming syllable of these lines must be a stressed syllable.
Stanzas two; four lines each;
Start off with nonsense; all
Lines except Four and Eight:
Two-dactyl mix
Sixth line is often one
doubledactylic word
Rhyme Four and Eight, skip their
Counts five and six.
It's imperfect, and incomplete. Can we refine and improve ?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Stanzas two, four lines each.
Start off with nonsense. All
Lines except Four and Eight:
Two-dactyl mix
Sixth line is one word with
Doubledactylity.
Rhyme Four and Eight; skip their
Counts five and six.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Two four-line stanzas, two
Dactyls per line, and lines
Four and Eight (missing two
Final counts) rhyme;
Sixth line's one word which is
Hexasyllabical;
First line's a jingle in
Two-dactyl time.
Personally, I prefer to leave out the nonsense and introduce the topic in the first line, so I can say more.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Aha! Good on yer for thinking outside the box like that. I never noticed the missing gibberish, but in retrospect it's a clear pattern.
When I first encountered the beast (New York Magazine, I think it was, in the late 50s or so) they weren't called double-dactyls yet but rather went by the name "Higgledy -Piggledies." It never occurred to me that that was a negotiabe part of the format.
I think I disagree with the first stipulation, too - nothing reasonable requires that they be one sentence, and not a paragraph or even a conversation.
I'll keep your practice in mind for the future!
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Bernard Montgomery,
Sent to North Africa,
Rallied his troops with the
Confident boast:
"With our numerical
Superiority,
We can win easily.
Rommel is toast!"
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Pontifex Maximus,
Holy Pope Francis was
Chosen divinely as
Bishop of Rome.
He will deliver some
Deontological
Guidance in tracts from his
Vatican home.
Judas Iscariot
Needed some cash, so he
Vilely betrayed the Lord
Jesus, we're told.
Sadly, such greed is an
Anthropological
Trait - we are tempted by
Silver and gold.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Russell and Whitehead, the
Mathematicians,
Worked hard to produce all-
Encompassing feat.
Then came Kurt Gödel, who
Self-referentially
Showed that their treatise must
Be incomplete.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Ludwig van Beethoven,
Writing a violin
Part in a symphony,
Put a low F.
When he was told of its
Unplayability,
He was ashamed and said:
"Sorry, I'm deaf".
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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And now for a Double Anapest:
Alexander the Great
Led a conquering host
Which could soundly defeat
Any tribe;
His opponents' extreme
Ineffectualness
Was a fact the accounts
All describe.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I gotta work on this some more. A dactyl is ONE-two-three - a triple rhythm. But maybe an anapest is not just a matter of the stress being on the final beat instead, but (musical analogy) it's two pickup notes and the downbeat, which makes it more a four-count rhythm: three-four-ONE like a galloping horse - pa-da-POM, pa-da-POM etc - with a short unvoiced pause providing an implied "two," . Otherwise you really can't tell one from the other. If you string them together how do you decide whether it's a poly-dactyl or a poly-anapest? Sung to the tune of the Irish Washerwoman: " We got PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL..." repeat ad-libitum. Is it ONE.two.three.ONE.two.three or two.three.ONE.two.three.ONE? Here's what the tune sounds like(PS Para-etc. is the chemical name for a kind of moth-repellant.)
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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I gotta work on this some more.
A dactyl is ONE-two-three - a triple rhythm. But maybe an anapest is not just a matter of the stress being on the final beat instead, but (musical analogy) it's two pickup notes and the downbeat, which makes it more a four-count rhythm: three-four-ONE like a galloping horse - pa-da-POM, pa-da-POM etc - with a short unvoiced pause providing an implied "two," Yes, I agree, and I have tried to reproduce this rhythm as far as possible by using a long vowel and/or a consonant cluster for the 'downbeats'. Otherwise you really can't tell one from the other. If you string them together how do you decide whether it's a poly-dactyl or a poly-anapest? Well, if you begin and end each line with a complete anapestic foot, I would call it a poly-anapest. Sung to the tune of the Irish Washerwoman: " We got PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL
de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL-de-hyde / PAR-a-di-CHLOR-o-a-MI-no-benz-AL..." repeat ad-libitum. Is it ONE.two.three.ONE.two.three or two.three.ONE.two.three.ONE? Yes, I am familiar with this tune. The distinction is not so clear here, but since the tune begins with two upbeats and ends with a downbeat, it seems more anapestic than dactylic. "We got SEV-en-ty-THOU-sand-two-HUN-dred-and-FOUR/ We got SEV-en-ty-THOU-sand-two-HUN-dred-and-FOUR/ We got SEV-en-ty-THOU-sand-two-HUN-dred-and-FOUR/ We got SEV-en-ty-THOU-sand-two-HUN-dred-and- FOUR". (Some of the later lines begin with only one upbeat, i.e. "We've SEV-en-ty...")
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Carpal Tunnel
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All I've come up with so far is
On a tree by the river
A little tom-tit
Sang Willow, tit-willow,
Tit-willow.
And I said to him, Dicky-bird,
Why do you sit,
Singing Willow, tit-willow,
Tit-willow... usw.
But that one's taken.
I'll keep working.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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President Kennedy
Said that America
Would in a few years put
Men on the Moon.
Clearly his motive was
Geopolitical -
Beating the Russians would
Be a great boon.
William the Conqueror,
Claiming his right to the
Kingdom of England, took
Power by force.
Grimly efficient and
Authoritarian,
He laid the law down (in
Latin, of course).
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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----please, draw me a sheep----
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