Humorous Poems – Dec 11, 2020

 

The variety of poems spanned old favourites like Lewis Carroll and Edward Lear, and recognised poets like Elizabeth Bishop and Byron. Shel Silverstein and Roald Dahl continue to figure annually. Unusually we had a scientist, Haldane, in their midst. It is obvious these authors get much relish out of writing humorous stuff that shows the world and themselves in a comical light.

It comes at the end of a year that in real life gave us few laughs, barring the gaucheries of Mr Trump. POTUS at one point suggested research into treatment of the novel coronavirus by injecting disinfectant into the body. As a result the group’s WhatsApp conversations within the reading group are filled with haikus, tetrameters, and story lines sending up POTUS in waves of laughter. We would have been entirely thankful for the comic relief he afforded – had he not also been responsible for countless Covid deaths among his followers by instructing them to flout the elementary means of protection mandated by keeping distance, wearing masks, and not gathering in crowds.

Covid-19 has given rise to poetry that matches its malevolence, like Scott Momaday’s In the Time of Plague:

We endure thoughts of demise
And measure the distance of death.
Death too wears a mask.
But consider, there may well be good
In our misfortune if we can find it. It is
Hidden in the darkness of our fear.

If limericks do not figure among the holiday offerings of KRG, this one by Anonymous tells why:
The limerick packs laughs anatomical
In space that is quite economical
But the good ones I’ve seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones are so seldom comical.

Devika made up her face with eyebrow pencil and lipstick of different colours; the effect resembled Tā moko, the permanent marking practised by the Māori people of New Zealand. KumKum showed up in a bright witch's costume with a wilting crown of croton leaves:

Joe was dressed as a colourful Bene Israel rabbi, or a Paris priest, who had decided to scandalise his flock:

Kavita showed up in a conical hat;

Priya appeared with numerous moles and a trishul. Arun is here in spectacular face paint:

And Thommo as a black-hat cyber hacker –

Geeta was in humanitarian garb as a nurse administering the Covid-19 vaccine:

Zakia smiles in a moustache, while Pamela makes her appearance as a witch in black with a long nose and claws:

and Geetha in a cape:

Arundhaty who won the costume prize is shown below in full-length modelling her dress:

The group are all gathered for the event:

Everyone agreed the next novel (Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf) for Jan 2021, though short, is a formidable book; ‘tough’ was the word used. It is slated for Jan 29 reading.

Full Account and Record of the Humorous Poems Reading Dec 11, 2020

Zakia

Gopa being unable to attend, left her chosen poem for Zakia to recite, Father William, by Lewis Carroll. Lewis Carroll was born as Charles Lutwidge Dodson on January 27, 1832, in Cheshire, England. He was the third of the eleven children of his parents. His father was a Clergyman. Carroll began to write poetry early in his life, he was also an entertainer. He entertained his family with his magic tricks and comedy. He graduated from Christ Church College, Oxford, majoring in mathematics and writing. After his graduation he taught Mathematics in Christ Church College. Lewis Carroll wrote more than a dozen books on Mathematics. He was an excellent speaker. For a period of time he became interested in photography. One of his favourite models was a young girl named Alice Liddell, the daughter of the Dean of the Christ Church College, who later became the inspiration for Carrol's fictional character, Alice.

Lewis Carrol at a desk

Later, Carroll devoted himself completely in writing. Carroll's writings verged to the comical and the fantastic. His most famous books Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass were published 1865 and 1872. Carroll will also be remembered for his nonsense poems such as Jabberwocky, which was included in Through the Looking Glass.

Lewis Carroll suffered from multiple afflictions, such as, chronic migraines, epilepsy, stammering, and partial deafness. He was married to his first cousin Frances Jane Lutwidge in 1830. He died on January 14, 1898.

You Are Old, Father William appears in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland in Chapter 5 as advice from a caterpillar. It's a parody of a poem by Robert Southey, who was Poet Laureate from 1813 until his death in 1843. Southey’s principal contribution to English literary tradition is the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. As a poet he was often satirised, for example, by Lord Byron. His poem called The Old Man’s Comforts is what Lewis Carroll mocked. That poem begins:

You are old, Father William the young man cried,

     The few locks which are left you are grey;

You are hale, Father William, a hearty old man,

     Now tell me the reason, I pray.

 

In the days of my youth, Father William replied,

     I remember’d that youth would fly fast,

And abused not my health and my vigour at first,

     That I never might need them at last.

Compare the solemnity of this with Carroll’s levity:

“You are old, father William,” the young man said,

“And your hair has become very white;

And yet you incessantly stand on your head —

Do you think, at your age, it is right?”

“In my youth,” father William replied to his son,

“I feared it would injure the brain;

But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,

Why, I do it again and again.”

John Tenniel’s illustrations to accompany Father William

Zakia said this poem has been termed ‘one of the undisputed masterpieces of nonsense verse.’ When Alice finished reciting it, she admits that “some of the words have got altered”, but the Caterpillar observes that her recitation is “wrong from beginning to end.”

This poem was among the favourites when Joe used to regale his children in the evenings with reading and story-telling.

Thommo

Thommo selected the poem by Elizabeth Bishop, Exchanging Hats. He was attracted to this poem because he had read Edward de Bono’s book, Six Thinking Hats, which propagated the idea that ‘parallel thinking provides a means for groups to plan thinking processes in a detailed and cohesive way, and in doing so to think together more effectively.’ de Bono came up with the term ‘lateral thinking’ in his 1971 management book, Lateral Thinking for Management. He pioneered the teaching of Thinking as a subject in schools, teaching how to think creatively, rather than what to think.

Bono's Six Thinking Hats

Brief Bio of Elizabeth Bishop 

She was born in 1911 and died in 1976. She was an American poet and short-story writer. She was a consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress 1949-1950, a Pulitzer Prize winner for poetry in 1956, and a National Book Award Winner in 1970. Some have described her as the most gifted poet of the twentieth century. Her well-known poems are In the Waiting Room, First Death in Nova Scotia, and Sestina. Let me add One Art which is often anthologised.

Elizabeth Bishop

Her father was a wealthy man but he died when she was eight months old. He left her an inheritance that allowed her to travel and live in places without having to work for a living. She lived in Brazil and her poems reflect life in those places. For 14 years she lived in Brazil with her lover, the architect Lota de Macedo Soares in Pétropolis. After Soares took her own life in 1967, Bishop spent  time in New York and San Francisco, and finally took a teaching position at Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1970. That was the year she received a National Book Award in Poetry for The Complete Poems which includes about a hundred poems. She never married. 

Bishop was a painter too, painting throughout her life. The paintings were tracked down by the art writer William Benton, who arranged an exhibition of Bishop's artwork (twenty-seven pieces) in January 1993, at the East Martello Tower Museum, during the Key West Literary Seminar on Bishop's writing. About forty of her paintings survive.

Elizabeth Bishop – Graveyard With Fenced Graves and Poinciana Trees (Gul Mohur)

For a further introduction to her many paintings see Elizabeth Bishop: Exchanging Hats – in pictures. And you can look here for a more extensive bio of Elizabeth Bishop supplied by Joe when he read a few of her poems on Jan 30, 2009 at KRG.

In the poem the poet considers an uncle who wears women’s hats and women who wear men's caps: both look funny, and can’t resist because

The headgear of the other sex

inspires us to experiment.

It’s written in tetrameter, rhyming abba.

the natural madness of the hatter.

And if the opera hats collapse

and crowns grow draughty, then, perhaps,

he thinks what might a miter matter?

The last line ends sharply in tongue twister of swift alliteration and we suddenly remember she is a bishop.

Arundhaty

When reciting the poem A Lovely Hand by Anonymous, we are tempted to think of the lovely hand

... so small and neat,

I thought my heart with joy would burst

The hand is as grasping as that of a lover; but the humour comes in a reversal at the end to reveal the hand

... so dear I held last night –

Four Aces and a King.

Bio supplied by Anonymous

This anonymous poet was born at an undetermined time in the past. Shee remains quite joyful to be rid of the baggage of history, identity and nationality that hampers expression, and puts a scrimp on the universal language of poetry. Though writing by preference in English as it has the widest reach, Anonymous could as easily have set this down in any of half a dozen languages in which shee can and does write verse, always anonymously. I want to get out of the way of my poems so that the text and the song can go and lodge without resistance in the reader’s mind and play upon hiser lips. Freed of prior knowledge and cultural frameworks, the poem can then stand genderless and timeless, to introduce itself to each generation. Its claim on their attention will last as long as the words resonate in future; and when in distant ages the shiver of its poesy reaches quietus, it shall pass unnoticed, and anonymous, as the day it was born.

Bio of Alan Balter taken from Poem Hunter.com

Alan Balter

Alan Balter was born in May 1939 in Chicago. He worked as a teacher in school for children with special needs before becoming a Special Education professor. He earned a Ph D in Special Education. He spent his career teaching adolescents with developmental delays. He also taught undergraduate Courses in the same field at the University of Illinois. 

He worked as the Director of Secondary Special Education Services in Skokie, Illinois before joining the faculty in the Special Education Department at Chicago State University. There, over a tenure of thirty-two years, he prepared teachers for children and adolescents with developmental delays, learning disabilities, and emotional disorders.

Besides publishing  papers and books in his field of expertise, he wrote poems for his grandchildren (and everyone else’s). His other publications include two nonfiction books: Divided Apple: A Story about Teaching in Chicago and Learning Disabilities: A Book for Parents. He has also published two novels: Holden and Me (Rockway Press) for which he received their international fiction award in 2006, and Different Ways of Being (Linkville Press).

In the short poem Eating Habits, Balter ruminates on the uncanny attraction food has for new clothes –

Spicy mustard, chocolate custard

Everybody knows

Never spill and never will

When you’re wearing your old clothes

But brand new pants don't have a chance

Hanging on your hips

...

It concludes in laughter –

So let’s suppose food really knows

When you’re dressed up fancy

I’d still conclude that eating nude

Would be very chancy.

Joe mentioned that Alan Balter is the only poet who has written to KRG and specifically requested that his poems be deleted from the blog.

Devika 

Short Bio of Edward Lear by Devika

Edward Lear

Edward Lear is known for his nonsense verse. He started as an English landscape painter but is more widely known as the writer of an original kind of nonsense verse and as the populariser of the limerick form. His true genius is apparent in his nonsense poems, which portray a world of fantastic creatures in fantastic words, often suggesting a deep underlying sense of melancholy. Their quality is matched, especially in the limericks, by that of his engaging pen-and-ink drawings.

He was the youngest of 21 children, and was brought up by his eldest sister, Ann, and from age 15 onward earned his living by drawing. He subsequently worked for the British Museum, making drawings of birds for the ornithologist John Gould. During 1832–37, he made illustrations of the earl of Derby’s private menagerie at Knowsley, Lancashire. Lear had a natural affinity for children, and it was for the earl’s grandchildren that he produced A Book of Nonsense (1846, enlarged 1861). In 1835 he decided to become a landscape painter.

Lear suffered all his life from epilepsy and melancholia. After 1837 he lived mainly abroad. Though naturally timid, he was a constant and intrepid traveller, exploring Italy, Greece, Albania, Palestine, Syria, Egypt, and, later, India and Ceylon. An indefatigable worker, he produced innumerable pen and watercolour sketches of great topographical accuracy. He worked these up into the carefully finished watercolours and large oil paintings that were his financial mainstay. During his nomadic life he lived, among other places, at Rome, Corfu, and, finally, with his celebrated cat, Foss, at San Remo.

Lear primarily played the piano, but he also played the accordion, flute, and a small guitar. He composed music for many Romantic and Victorian poems, but was known mostly for his many musical settings of Tennyson's poetry. Lear's were the only musical settings that Tennyson approved of. He also composed music for many of his nonsense songs, including The Owl and the Pussy-cat, but only two of the scores have survived, the music for The Courtship of the Yonghy-Bonghy-Bò and The Pelican Chorus. 

The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear is the most popular childhood poem in UK (drawing by Lear)

While he never played professionally, he did perform his own nonsense songs and his settings of others’ poetry at countless social gatherings, sometimes adding his own lyrics, and sometimes replacing serious lyrics with nursery rhymes.

Lear's most fervent and painful friendship was with Franklin Lushington. He met the young barrister in Malta in 1849 and then toured southern Greece with him. Lear developed an infatuation that Lushington did not wholly reciprocate. Although they remained friends for almost forty years, until Lear's death, the gulf in their feelings constantly tormented Lear. Indeed, Lear's attempts at male companionship were not always successful; the very intensity of Lear's affections may have doomed these relationships. 

The closest he came to marriage was two proposals, both to the same woman forty-six years his junior, which were not accepted. For companions, he relied instead on friends and correspondents, and especially, during later life, on his Albanian chef, Giorgis, a faithful friend and, as Lear complained, a thoroughly unsatisfactory chef. Another trusted companion in San Remo was his cat, Foss, who died in 1886 and was buried with some ceremony in a garden at Villa Tennyson.

Lear travelled widely throughout his life and eventually settled in San Remo, on his beloved Mediterranean coast, in the 1870s, at a villa he named Villa Tennyson. After a long decline in his health, Lear died at his villa in 1888 of heart disease, from which he had suffered since at least 1870. Lear's funeral was said to have been a sad, lonely affair by the wife of Dr. Hassall, Lear’s physician, for none of Lear’s many lifelong friends were able to attend. 

Lear is buried in the Cemetery Foce in San Remo. On his headstone are inscribed these lines about Mount Tomohrit (in Albania) from Tennyson's poem To E.L. [Edward Lear], On His Travels in Greece:

                              all things fair.


With such a pencil, such a pen.


You shadow’d forth to distant men,


I read and felt that I was there. 

The centenary of his death was marked in Britain with a set of Royal Mail stamps in 1988 and an exhibition at the Royal Academy. Lear's birthplace area is now marked with a plaque at Bowman’s Mews, Islington, in London, and his bicentenary during 2012 was celebrated with a variety of events, exhibitions and lectures in venues across the world including an International Owl and Pussycat Day on his birth anniversary.

 References :

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Edward-Lear

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Lear

Devika read The Jumblies with relish:

Far and few, far and few,

Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Lines like these give an insight into the somewhat deranged mind a humorous poet must possess to concoct them:

They whistled and warbled a moony song

To the echoing sound of a coppery gong,

In the shade of the mountains brown.

Among the items bought on their travels in a Sieve over the sea, Stilton cheese is mentioned, and Joe was excited to note something he loved, an English product which has the unique distinction of having been praised by T.S. Eliot in a letter to the editor of The Times, London; wherein he advocates for the formation of a Society for the Preservation of Ancient Cheeses.  KumKum cannot abide the cheese that Joe loves, but Priya said she bought a block of it.

Shoba

Pam Ayres was born on Mar 14, 1947. She is an English poet, comedian and song writer for radio ad TV programs. Her autobiography, titled The Necessary Aptitude, was the UK’s bestselling female autobiography of 2011. The title refers to the number of times when she was told she did not have the necessary aptitude. The youngest of six children, she published a book of poems titled, You Made me Late Again! Her poems figure in school textbooks around the world where English is taught. Bob Dylan inspired her to write poetry. She has published six volumes of poems and appeared in a TV program called Opportunity Knocks. Her most recent poetry book, Up In The Attic, was  published in September 2019, and went straight to the bestseller lists. Pam Ayres was awarded the MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours of 2004.

Pam Ayres makes people laugh and while it may not result in great art, it entertains. Comedic poems are among the most living forms of poetry; they have given Pam Ayres a broader audience than many poets will ever have. You can read more about Pam Ayres at poetrysoup

Before Shoba could read the poem, Yes, I'll marry you my dear,  Zakia said , ‘It's very funny. I read it.’ It's a bride's frank confession of all the reasons she'll say ‘I do’ when asked at the altar whether she'll take her partner as husband – reasons ranging from taking care of the crying baby to taking the flak for her pre-menstrual tension (PMT).

Priya

She read a poem in Khadi Boli, a dialect of Hindi spoken around Delhi. Khadi means standing, denoting a stiff and raw form, which may sound harsh to the fallen speakers of Padiboli, as speakers of the raw form refer to the Braj Bhasha dialect. 

Kaka Hathrasi (1906 – 1995) is quite a well-known humorist and satirist whose given name is Prabhu Lal Garg. His poems, often political in nature, offer a satirical view of the subject. Priya liked how Joe recast his name as Kaka Rashasi, hasi meaning laughter and ras meaning taste or essence. This is a short poem chosen at a busy time when Priya had a house full of guests. Hathrasi used to commonly recite at Kavi Sammelans (poet gatherings), specifically in the genre of hasya kavitha (humorous poems).

Kaka Hathrasi, satirical poet from the town of Hathras

Bholu the oil seller who used to cry out in a stentorian voice as he went about selling oil in the street, was suddenly missing. When he reappeared one day, several months later, it was in a timid bleating voice, a far cry from his  thundering voice of old. What happened?

Kaka, I got married.

The readers congratulated Priya for her excellent translation.

Although the poet has passed it off by poking fun at the poor theli, it describes what some domineering women can do to emasculate their men and make them feel insecure.

KumKum expressed the hope that at a future sitting she could recite the nonsense verse penned by Sukumar Ray, the father of film-maker Satayajt Ray. He wrote many poems, including 45 limericks that make up the book Abol Tabol (Rhyme without Reason) which was published in 1923. KumKum said she’d have a problem to translate the poems, but the job has been done by Sukanta Chaudhuri in the book, Select Nonsense of Sukumar Ray. Rima Chakraborty of Vidyasagar University has written an article that goes into the anti-colonial subject matter underlying Sukumar Ray's satire. You can read it here: Finding Sense Behind Nonsense in Select Poems of Sukumar Ray.

Priya referred to a Malayalam art form called Koothu (meaning dance in Tamil). It is a kind of stand-up comedy in song and dance which you can read about at this reference on Chakyar Koothu. Another form called Tullal, supplanted it later on, invented by Kunjan Nambiar, an exponent of Malayalam satirist poetry. 

There was some unnecessary confusion when Joe mentioned Khari Baoli in Delhi, which is a place which once used to have a deep stepwell (Khari = salty and Baoli = step well), but that is gone and the place by that name near Chandni Chowk is now famous as a market for dried fruits and spices. But Baoli, meaning a well, Priya said, is quite distinct from Boli, meaning a spoken language.

Pamela

Shel Silverstein was an American writer known for his cartoons, songs and children's books. He styled himself as Shelvy in some works. His books have been translated into 30 languages and sold more than 20 million copies. He was born in 1930 in Chicago,  and died in 1999. He won the Grammy award for the best country song and was nominated for an Oscar. He wrote classics such as A Light in the Attic (HarperCollins, 1981), which received the School Library Journal Best Books Award in 1982; Where the Sidewalk Ends (Harper & Row, 1974), a 1974 Michigan Young Readers Award winner. He won awards for children's illustrated books several times.

The poem Pamela chose is about a child who doesn't like to go to school. She totes up every excuse in the world for not going to school, but the moment she hears it's Saturday, she chimes in, 

G'bye, I'm going out to play!

KumKum

To add to Zakia's biography of Lewis Carroll, KumKum said his father was a parish priest and he himself was a top mathematician in the special field of mathematical logic. He was also adept in making recreational mathematical problems. He had a double degree in mathematics from Oxford, and also studied writing. He could speak well and write with great fluency. After his graduation he taught Mathematics in Christ Church College. Lewis Carroll wrote more than a dozen books on Mathematics. 

For a period of time he became interested in photography. One of his favourite models was a young girl named Alice Liddell, the daughter of the Dean of the Christ Church College, who later became the inspiration for Carrol's fictional character, Alice. 

He was married to his first cousin Frances Jane Lutwidge in 1830. He died on January 14, 1898. She loved him for his being a cheerful entertainer who kept his family amused in his youth with his magic tricks and comedy.

Prefacing her reading of the Lobster Quadrille from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, KumKum mentioned that it brought to mind the fun times in the evening when Joe used to entertain his daughters by boisterous reading and singing of this very poem.

The Lobster-Quadrille is the 6th mosaic in Doreen Adams’ series Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The Mock Turtle (half cow, half turtle), and the Gryphon (half lion, half eagle). It is made of Found Objects, Glass, Resin, Wood on Glass, Wood, and Other Materials

To set the context the Mock Turtle introduces Alice to a dance called the Lobster Quadrille. As the sea animals come to shore they form two lines and each gets a lobster as partner to dance with. The Mock Turtle explains the dance and the Gryphon and he perform a sample rendition. The Mock Turtle sings along and after the dance Alice starts a conversation with the Mock Turtle about whitings, the color of Alice’s shoes, and the importance of porpoises as traveling companions. When the Gryphon asks Alice about her adventures she begins her story of going down the rabbit hole and gains courage. Alice recites the entire poem of Isaac Watts, Tis’ The Voice of The Sluggard. The Mock Turtle responds by singing Turtle Soup. The Gryphon hears a voice in the distance, signaling the beginning of a trial, and urges Alice to follow him, leaving the Mock Turtle alone in the midst of his song. 

At the end Joe gave a sample of how he used to sing this poem. You can find a rendition on Youtube, not quite how Joe used to sing it. There are further notes here on The Lobster Quadrille, with a very useful sidebar linking to all sorts of interesting asides, a virtual treasure chest of annotations that have been contributed by readers to the immortal classic.

And finally one must be grateful to the British Library for making available in page-turning mode a facsimile of the manuscript of Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, in Lewis Carroll’s hand with his drawings and illuminated pages in colour. It is the original manuscript version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Show it to a child as a treasured gift to read from.

Devika had to leave at this point to drive Achu to an event and was sorry to be missing the rest of the session.

Kavita

She read a humorous take on the popular children's fairy tale, Cinderella, written by Roald Dahl, the Norwegian-Welsh author of children’s books who has been in the news recently.

Roald Dahl was born in Wales to Norwegian immigrants. He was a novelist, poet, screen-writer, children’s author and during World War II he was a fighter pilot. He trained in the venerable Tiger Moth biplane, later flew the Gloster Gladiator (also a biplane) in Libya, and crashed in one, receiving serious injuries. He switched to the Hurricane (which along with the Spifire, was the chief defending aircraft in the Battle of Britain in 1940) in Athens, Greece. He considers himself lucky, for out of the sixteen pilots he trained with, thirteen were killed in the air within the next two years. A year after being discharged from the RAF, Roald was posted to the British Embassy in Washington D.C. as an Assistant Air Attaché, where a chance encounter with the writer C.S. Forester led to the publication of his first short story, Shot Down Over Libya (also known as A Piece of Cake).

His books have sold 250 million copies world-wide and still sell briskly; some have been made into films. He rose to prominence in the late 1940s as a writer, and became one of the great storytellers for children in the twentieth century. He wrote some of the well-loved children's stories, such as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, The Witches, Fantastic Mr Fox, The BFG, The Twits and George's Marvellous Medicine. His wiki entry is quite fascinating. He died in Nov 1990.

Dahl's version of Cinderella, as he says at the beginning, is a lot more bloody:

Then up came Sister Number Two,

Who yelled, 'Now I will try the shoe!'

'Try this instead!' the Prince yelled back.

He swung his trusty sword and smack

Her head went crashing to the ground.

It bounced a bit and rolled around.

Not the sort of gore you want to expose your child to ... Cinderella wants nothing to do with this bloodthirsty man and asks her fairy to rescue her:

Cindy answered, ‘Oh kind Fairy,

This time I shall be more wary.

No more Princes, no more money.

I have had my taste of honey.

I'm wishing for a decent man.

They're hard to find. D'you think you can?’

Within a minute, Cinderella

Was married to a lovely feller,

A simple jam maker by trade,

Who sold good home-made marmalade.

And they lived happily ever after! Everyone had a laugh, how Cinderella wised up to the false glories of princes and palaces. Arundhaty pointed out that she read this very poem when the Humorous Poems session was held last on Dec 16, 2019, at her riverside house on the lawns – it must have escaped Joe’s scrutiny. Dahl has a humorous version of six fairy tales, Kavita said. Arundhaty is currently reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to her 4-year old.

Joe

J.B.S. Haldane – Photograph courtesy of Klaus Patau, University of Wisconsin

The poem he chose was by John Burdon Sanderson Haldane, a British statistician and geneticist whom Thommo introduced to KRG readers as foreigner who settled in India and wore the Tamil Nadu white veshti and kurta habitually.

His work paved the way for research in evolutionary biology. Despite not having any formal degree in the sciences, he published mathematical papers on Darwinian evolution, suggested the basic idea of IVF technology and cloning, and worked in the field of population genetics.

His biographer Ronald Clark said he was “the most erudite biologist of his generation, and perhaps of the century”.

Born on 5 November 1892 at Oxford, Haldane was born and raised in a scientific environment. His Scottish father, John Scott Haldane, was a renowned physiologist. Young Haldane also played guinea pig in his father’s experiments.

Haldane obtained first-class honours in mathematical moderations and classics from the University of Oxford in 1912 and published his first original paper at the age of 20.

His education was interrupted during World War I. After the war, he returned to research and became a Fellow at the New College, Oxford, from 1919 to 1922. In 1922 he moved to the University of Cambridge where he taught until 1932 and simultaneously worked on enzymes and genetics. Later, he taught Genetics at University College London.

British sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke once said, “J.B.S. Haldane was perhaps the most brilliant science populariser of his generation.” Drawn to politics at Oxford, Haldane became a member of the Liberal club and started taking part in debates. He described himself as a Marxist and a rationalist (atheist). 

However, by the end of World War II, he was disillusioned by the regime and left the party in 1950. In 1957, he left Britain and came to India. There are a number of reasons given for this, but the main one was his condemnation of the British regime for the Suez Crisis. He joined the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI) in (Kolkata) in 1957 as a research professor and worked there till 1961. He later moved to Odisha with the aim of building an Institute for Genetics and Biometry at the invitation of the State Government.

J.B.S. Haldane with P.C. Mahalanobis, Director of ISI

His work in population genetics, especially deriving methods for estimating human mutation rates and genetic damage resulting from radiation, led to the ban on open-air testing of nuclear weapons. His research also laid the foundation for finding causes of malaria as well as thalassemia.

Like his father, he was ready to go to any extent for research, even if it meant inhaling poisonous gases to study their effect on human biology. Through self-experimentation, he studied the effect of inhaling toxic mixtures of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide on human physiology under varying atmospheric pressures and temperatures under seawater.

In 1964, Haldane died of cancer. Ever dedicated to research, he had already decided to donate his body. In Haldane’s words, “Our only hope of understanding the universe is to look at it from as many different points of view as possible.”

It was while Haldane was returning to Bombay from a conference in USA that he stopped in London to diagnose an affliction. There it was discovered he had advanced liver cancer. Haldane wrote a comic poem while in the hospital, mocking his own incurable disease. It was read by his friends, who appreciated the consistent irreverence with which Haldane had lived his life. The poem (Cancer’s a Funny Thing) first appeared in print in 21 February 1964 issue of the New Statesman.

JBS died in Bhubaneswar in 1964 aged 72. For more details on this remarkable human being’s life refer to the wiki entry for him.

Joe highlighted a quote from Haldane that was particularly relevant in modern times when the  scope for wide and free discourse is being reined in: “I can be, and am, a nuisance to the government of India ... I also happen to be proud of being a citizen of India, which is a lot more diverse than Europe, let alone the U.S.A, the U.S.S.R or China, and thus a better model for a possible world organisation. It may of course break up, but it is a wonderful experiment. So, I want to be labeled as a citizen of India.”

Th poem got the applause of readers for the bravery of a man who could write in such a light-hearted way about his own terminal cancer, using excruciatingly exact scientific language to  elicit laughter. It has incomparable lines like this after he was surgically pierced fore and aft:

So now I am like two-faced Janus

The only god who sees his anus.

Geetha

George Gordon Byron, once described by Lady Caroline Lamb as ‘mad, bad, and dangerous to know,’ lived 36 years and became world famous

It was Byron once again for Geetha who selected The Vision of Judgment. It's a satirical poem by Byron written in 1822. It concerns a dispute in heaven about the fate of the soul of King George III; it is a response to the poem of the same name in 1821 by the Poet Laureate, Robert Southey, which had envisioned the soul of George III entering heaven triumphantly (one of the Poet Laureate's official duties is to celebrate royal events ...).  George III ultimately lost his mind, but before that he was a mighty voice in favour of slavery and  combatively opposed the American revolutionary war of independence until the ultimate defeat of Lord Cornwallis and his surrender in 1781 to a combined American and French force at the Siege of Yorktown; that ended significant British hostilities in North America. This is the same Cornwallis who ushered in what is called the Permanent Settlement, whereby a permanent Zamindar class was created to collect revenue for the British.

Byron was provoked by the High Tory point of view from which Southey’s poem was written, and he took personally Southey’s preface which attacked those “Men of diseased hearts and depraved imaginations” who had set up a ‘Satanic school’ of poetry, “characterized by a Satanic spirit of pride and audacious impiety.” He responded in the preface to his own Vision of Judgment with an attack on “The gross flattery, the dull impudence, the renegado intolerance, and impious cant, of the poem”, and mischievously referred to Southey as “the author of Wat Tyler”, an anti-royalist work from Southey’s firebrand revolutionary youth. His parody of A Vision of Judgement was so lastingly successful that, as the critic Geoffrey Carnall wrote, “Southey's reputation has never recovered from Byron's ridicule.” This is taken from the wiki entry for the poem.

It’s a very long poem, hence Geetha selected the first 10 stanzas. It tells of the mad King George III:

He died — but left his subjects still behind,

One half as mad — and t'other no less blind.

He died! his death made no great stir on earth:

His burial made some pomp; there was profusion

Of velvet, gilding, brass, and no great dearth

Of aught but tears — save those shed by collusion.

The poem ends with these lines:

And when the gorgeous coffin was laid low,

It seamed the mockery of hell to fold

The rottenness of eighty years in gold.

Geeta

Shoba read the poem A Warning on Spontaneous Combustion selected by Geeta, because Geeta had lost her internet connection. The poem starts by labelling whiskey the king of drinks,

But here’s a word o’ caution,

Tae think of when ye pour.

There’s a certain combination,

That tastes so very good,

But when it hits your tummy,

And mixes with your food.

That’s when the trouble starts

For yer pleasure hits overload,

And half an hour later,

Ye’ll suddenly explode.

Stuart McLean, CBC Radio host and award-winning humorist

Stuart McLean (born 1948, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, died 2017, Toronto, Ontario), was a Canadian radio humorist who created and hosted the long-running weekly radio variety show The Vinyl Cafe. 

McLean graduated in 1971 and got his start in broadcasting as a researcher for a call-in talk show. In 1978 he began producing documentaries for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s current-affairs program. By 1997 it had become a weekly staple. The show centred featured Dave, the proprietor of a small secondhand record store, and his wife, Morley, as well as their family and neighbours. It also featured recorded and live music performances by Canadian folk and acoustic musicians. McLean’s stories of ordinary Canadians were humorous recountings of mundane events that captivated listeners. 

McLean also penned books based on his radio broadcasts, beginning with the best seller The Morningside World of Stuart McLean (1989). A series of Vinyl Cafe story collections led off with Stories from the Vinyl Cafe (1995). Three of his books won the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour, and Vinyl Cafe Diaries received the 2004 Canadian Authors’ Association Jubilee Award. McLean taught  journalism at Ryerson Polytechnic School (1984 – 2004). In 2011 he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada. (This brief note on Stuart McLean is taken from Britannica.com).

The readers are grateful that they have these Zoom meetings to meet each other and hold the KRG sessions in the face of Covid-19. We get to see each other situated in our homes, at times interrupted by grandchildren, pets, vendors, or street noises. We have this permanent record Joe makes so that in future if anyone wants a recording it’s available (~900MB per Zoom session of KRG).

When the votes were tallied for the best costume and make-up the first prize went to Arundhaty, and the second prize to Devika! Arundhaty’s daughter did her face make-up. It had to be a good witch, not a bad witch, she insisted. The prize-winners were sent prizes – books, donated by Joe’s children who are mighty pleased that their PPods (as they Joe and KumKum) have this delightful company of KRG readers to keep them educated and amused through the year.

Bidding bye and Merry Christmas, KumKum said, “You all are very special in our lives.” Joe hoped that 10 days after the second jab of the vaccine we could go somewhere to a quiet resort, perhaps in the third quarter of 2021.

The Poems

Gopa —> Zakia

 Father William by Lewis Carroll

 "You are old, father William," the young man said,

    "And your hair has become very white;

  And yet you incessantly stand on your head —

    Do you think, at your age, it is right?"

  "In my youth," father William replied to his son,

    "I feared it would injure the brain;

  But now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,

    Why, I do it again and again."

  "You are old," said the youth, "as I mentioned before,

    And have grown most uncommonly fat;

  Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door —

    Pray, what is the reason of that?"

  "In my youth," said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,

    "I kept all my limbs very supple

  By the use of this ointment — one shilling the box —

    Allow me to sell you a couple."

  "You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak

    For anything tougher than suet;

  Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak —

    Pray, how did you manage to do it?"

  "In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law,

    And argued each case with my wife;

  And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,

    Has lasted the rest of my life."

  "You are old," said the youth; one would hardly suppose

    That your eye was as steady as ever;

  Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose —

    What made you so awfully clever?"

  "I have answered three questions, and that is enough,"

    Said his father; "don't give yourself airs!

  Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?

    Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!"

"That is not said right," said the Caterpillar.  

"Not quite right, I'm afraid," said Alice timidly;

"some of the words have got altered." 

"It is wrong from beginning to end," 

said the Caterpillar decidedly, and 

there was silence for some minutes.

Composition date is unknown - the above date represents the first publication date.

1. This parodies Robert Southey's 

"The Old Man's Comforts and How he Gained Them."

Thommo

Exchanging Hats by Elizabeth Bishop

Unfunny uncles who insist

in trying on a lady's hat,

--oh, even if the joke falls flat,

we share your slight transvestite twist

in spite of our embarrassment.

Costume and custom are complex.

The headgear of the other sex

inspires us to experiment.

Anandrous aunts, who, at the beach

with paper plates upon your laps,

keep putting on the yachtsmen's caps

with exhibitionistic screech,

the visors hanging o'er the ear

so that the golden anchors drag,

--the tides of fashion never lag.

Such caps may not be worn next year.

Or you who don the paper plate

itself, and put some grapes upon it,

or sport the Indian's feather bonnet,

--perversities may aggravate

the natural madness of the hatter.

And if the opera hats collapse

and crowns grow draughty, then, perhaps,

he thinks what might a miter matter?

Unfunny uncle, you who wore a

hat too big, or one too many,

tell us, can't you, are there any

stars inside your black fedora?

Aunt exemplary and slim,

with avernal eyes, we wonder

what slow changes they see under

their vast, shady, turned-down brim.

Shoba

Pam Ayres – Yes,  I’ll marry you my dear

“Yes, I’ll marry you, my dear.

And here’s the reason why:

So I can push you out of bed

When the baby starts to cry.

And if we hear a knocking

And it’s creepy and it’s late,

I hand you the torch you see,

And you investigate.

Yes, I’ll marry you, my dear,

You may not apprehend it,

But when the tumble-drier goes

It’s you that has to mend it.

You have to face the neighbour

Should our labrador attack him,

And if a drunkard fondles me

It’s you that has to whack him.

Yes, I’ll marry you, my dear,

You’re virile and you’re lean,

My house is like a pigsty

You can help to keep it clean.

That sexy little dinner

Which you served by candlelight,

As I do chipolatas,

You can cook it every night!!!

It’s you who has to work the drill

And put up curtain track,

And when I’ve got PMT it’s you who gets the flak,

I do see great advantages,

But none of them for you,

And so before you see the light,

I DO, I DO, I DO!!”

Saras

The Pig – Roald Dahl

In England once there lived a big

And wonderfully clever pig.

To everybody it was plain

That Piggy had a massive brain.

He worked out sums inside his head,

There was no book he hadn’t read,

He knew what made an airplane fly,

He knew how engines worked and why.

He knew all this, but in the end

One question drove him round the bend:

He simply couldn’t puzzle out

What LIFE was really all about.

What was the reason for his birth?

Why was he placed upon this earth?

His giant brain went round and round.

Alas, no answer could be found,

Till suddenly one wondrous night,

All in a flash, he saw the light.

He jumped up like a ballet dancer

And yelled, “By gum, I’ve got the answer!”

“They want my bacon slice by slice

“To sell at a tremendous price!

“They want my tender juicy chops

“To put in all the butchers’ shops!

“They want my pork to make a roast

“And that’s the part’ll cost the most!

“They want my sausages in strings!

“They even want my chitterlings!

“The butcher’s shop! The carving knife!

“That is the reason for my life!”

Such thoughts as these are not designed

To give a pig great peace of mind.

Next morning, in comes Farmer Bland,

A pail of pigswill in his hand,

And Piggy with a mighty roar,

Bashes the farmer to the floor . . .

Now comes the rather grizzly bit

So let’s not make too much of it,

Except that you must understand

That Piggy did eat Farmer Bland,

He ate him up from head to toe,

Chewing the pieces nice and slow.

It took an hour to reach the feet,

Because there was so much to eat,

And when he’d finished, Pig, of course,

Felt absolutely no remorse.

Slowly he scratched his brainy head

And with a little smile, he said,

“I had a fairly powerful hunch

“That he might have me for his lunch.

“And so, because I feared the worst,

“I thought I’d better eat him first.”

Priya

भोलू तेली गांव में, करै तेल की सेल 

गली-गली फेरी करै, 'तेल लेऊ जी तेल' 

'तेल लेऊ जी तेल', कड़कड़ी ऐसी बोली 

बिजुरी तड़कै अथवा छूट रही हो गोली

कहं काका कवि कछुक दिना सन्नाटौ छायौ 

एक साल तक तेली नहीं गांव में आयो

मिल्यौ अचानक एक दिन, मरियल बा की चाल 

काया ढीली पिलपिली, पिचके दोऊ गाल 

पिचके दोऊ गाल, गैल में धक्का खावै 

'तेल लेऊ जी तेल', बकरिया सौ मिमियावै 

पूछी हमने जे कहा हाल है गयौ तेरौ 

भोलू बोलो, काका ब्याह है गयौ मेरौ

(काका हाथरसी की हास्य कविता)   

Bholu the oil presser

Bholu the oil seller

Had a big voice

Down the street he went

Calling: Buy Oil Buy Oil

He roared like thunder

Like gunshot he boomed

But suddenly one day

His absence loomed

Kaka the poet, felt the silence

Missed his presence and said

One whole year the village

has remained quiet dead

One day appeared Bholu

Bereft of voice and vim

With sunken cheeks, a crestfallen gait

He emitted a lame bleat.

Buy oil, Buy Oil

What happened, 

asked the poet

What happened to you?

Bholu plainly said

Kaka, I got married.

Pamela

Shel Silverstein – Sick

Sick

I cannot go to school today,"

Said little Peggy Ann McKay.

"I have the measles and the mumps,

A gash, a rash and purple bumps.

My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,

I'm going blind in my right eye.

My tonsils are as big as rocks,

I've counted sixteen chicken pox

And there's one more—that's seventeen,

And don't you think my face looks green?

My leg is cut—my eyes are blue—

It might be instamatic flu.

I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,

I'm sure that my left leg is broke—

My hip hurts when I move my chin,

My belly button's caving in,

My back is wrenched, my ankle's sprained,

My 'pendix pains each time it rains.

My nose is cold, my toes are numb.

I have a sliver in my thumb.

My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,

I hardly whisper when I speak.

My tongue is filling up my mouth,

I think my hair is falling out.

My elbow's bent, my spine ain't straight,

My temperature is one-o-eight.

My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,

There is a hole inside my ear.

I have a hangnail, and my heart is—what?

What's that? What's that you say?

You say today is. . .Saturday?

G'bye, I'm going out to play!"

KumKum

The Lobster Quadrille by Lewis Carroll

“Will you walk a little faster?” said a whiting to a snail,

“There’s a porpoise close behind us, and he’s treading on my tail.

See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!

They are waiting on the shingle – will you come and join the dance?

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?

“You can really have no notion how delightful it will be

When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!”

But the snail replied “Too far, too far!” and gave a look askance —

Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.

Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.

Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.

“What matters it how far we go?” his scaly friend replied.

“There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.

The further off from England the nearer is to France —

Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, will you join the dance?

Will you, won’t you, will you, won’t you, won’t you join the dance?

Kavita

Roald Dahl – Cinderella

Cinderella

I guess you think you know this story.

You don't. The real one's much more gory.

The phoney one, the one you know,

Was cooked up years and years ago,

And made to sound all soft and sappy

just to keep the children happy.

Mind you, they got the first bit right,

The bit where, in the dead of night,

The Ugly Sisters, jewels and all,

Departed for the Palace Ball,

While darling little Cinderella

Was locked up in a slimy cellar,

Where rats who wanted things to eat,

Began to nibble at her feet.

She bellowed 'Help!' and 'Let me out!

The Magic Fairy heard her shout.

Appearing in a blaze of light,

She said: 'My dear, are you all right?'

'All right?' cried Cindy .'Can't you see

'I feel as rotten as can be!'

She beat her fist against the wall,

And shouted, 'Get me to the Ball!

'There is a Disco at the Palace!

'The rest have gone and I am jealous!

'I want a dress! I want a coach!

'And earrings and a diamond brooch!

'And silver slippers, two of those!

'And lovely nylon panty hose!

'Done up like that I'll guarantee

'The handsome Prince will fall for me!'

The Fairy said, 'Hang on a tick.'

She gave her wand a mighty flick

And quickly, in no time at all,

Cindy was at the Palace Ball!

It made the Ugly Sisters wince

To see her dancing with the Prince.

She held him very tight and pressed

herself against his manly chest.

The Prince himself was turned to pulp,

All he could do was gasp and gulp.

Then midnight struck. She shouted,'Heck!

I've got to run to save my neck!'

The Prince cried, 'No! Alas! Alack!'

He grabbed her dress to hold her back.

As Cindy shouted, 'Let me go!'

The dress was ripped from head to toe.

She ran out in her underwear,

And lost one slipper on the stair.

The Prince was on it like a dart,

He pressed it to his pounding heart,

'The girl this slipper fits,' he cried,

'Tomorrow morn shall be my bride!

I'll visit every house in town

'Until I've tracked the maiden down!'

Then rather carelessly, I fear,

He placed it on a crate of beer.

At once, one of the Ugly Sisters,

(The one whose face was blotched with blisters)

Sneaked up and grabbed the dainty shoe,

And quickly flushed it down the loo.

Then in its place she calmly put

The slipper from her own left foot.

Ah ha, you see, the plot grows thicker,

And Cindy's luck starts looking sicker.

Next day, the Prince went charging down

To knock on all the doors in town.

In every house, the tension grew.

Who was the owner of the shoe?

The shoe was long and very wide.

(A normal foot got lost inside.)

Also it smelled a wee bit icky.

(The owner's feet were hot and sticky.)

Thousands of eager people came

To try it on, but all in vain.

Now came the Ugly Sisters' go.

One tried it on. The Prince screamed, 'No!'

But she screamed, 'Yes! It fits! Whoopee!

'So now you've got to marry me!'

The Prince went white from ear to ear.

He muttered, 'Let me out of here.'

'Oh no you don't! You made a vow!

'There's no way you can back out now!'

'Off with her head!'The Prince roared back.

They chopped it off with one big whack.

This pleased the Prince. He smiled and said,

'She's prettier without her head.'

Then up came Sister Number Two,

Who yelled, 'Now I will try the shoe!'

'Try this instead!' the Prince yelled back.

He swung his trusty sword and smack

Her head went crashing to the ground.

It bounced a bit and rolled around.

In the kitchen, peeling spuds,

Cinderella heard the thuds

Of bouncing heads upon the floor,

And poked her own head round the door.

'What's all the racket? 'Cindy cried.

'Mind your own bizz,' the Prince replied.

Poor Cindy's heart was torn to shreds.

My Prince! she thought. He chops off heads!

How could I marry anyone

Who does that sort of thing for fun?

The Prince cried, 'Who's this dirty slut?

'Off with her nut! Off with her nut!'

Just then, all in a blaze of light,

The Magic Fairy hove in sight,

Her Magic Wand went swoosh and swish!

'Cindy! 'she cried, 'come make a wish!

'Wish anything and have no doubt

'That I will make it come about!'

Cindy answered, 'Oh kind Fairy,

'This time I shall be more wary.

'No more Princes, no more money.

'I have had my taste of honey.

I'm wishing for a decent man.

'They're hard to find. D'you think you can?'

Within a minute, Cinderella

Was married to a lovely feller,

A simple jam maker by trade,

Who sold good home-made marmalade.

Their house was filled with smiles and laughter

And they were happy ever after.

Joe 

Cancer’s a Funny Thing by J. B. S. Haldane 

I wish I had the voice of Homer 

To sing of rectal carcinoma, 

Which kills a lot more chaps, in fact, 

Than were bumped off when Troy was sacked. 

Yet, thanks to modern surgeon's skills, 

It can be killed before it kills 

Upon a scientific basis 

In nineteen out of twenty cases. 

I noticed I was passing blood 

(Only a few drops, not a flood). 

So pausing on my homeward way 

From Tallahassee to Bombay 

I asked a doctor, now my friend, 

To peer into my hinder end, 

To prove or to disprove the rumour 

That I had a malignant tumour. 

They pumped in BaSO4. 

Till I could really stand no more, 

And, when sufficient had been pressed in, 

They photographed my large intestine, 

In order to decide the issue 

They next out some bits Of tissue. 

(Before they did so, some good pal 

Had knocked me out with pentothal, 

Whose action is extremely quick,

And does not leave me feeling sick.) 

The microscope returned the answer 

That I had certainly got cancer, 

So I was wheeled into the theatre 

Where holes were made to make me better. 

One set is in my perineum 

Where I can feel, but can't yet see 'em. 

Another made me like a kipper 

Or female prey Of Jack the Ripper, 

Through this incision, I don't doubt, 

The neoplasm was taken out, 

Along with colon, and lymph nodes 

Where cancer cells might find abodes. 

A third much smaller hole is meant 

To function as a ventral vent: 

So now I am like two-faced Janus 

The only¹ god who sees his anus. 

I'll swear, without the risk of perjury, 

It was a snappy bit Of surgery. 

My rectum is a serious loss to me, 

But I've a very neat colostomy, 

And hope, as soon as I am able, 

To make it keep a fixed time-table. 

So do not wait for aches and pains 

To have a surgeon mend your drains; 

If he says "cancer" you're a dunce 

Unless you have it out at once, 

For if you wait it's sure to swell, 

And may have progeny as well. 

My final word, before I'm done, 

Is "Cancer can be rather fun". 

Thanks to the nurses and Nye Bevan 

The NHS is quite like heaven 

Provided one confronts the tumour 

With a sufficient sense of humour. 

I know that cancer often kills. 

But so do cars and sleeping pills; 

And it can hurt one till one sweats, 

So can bad teeth and unpaid debts. 

A spot of laughter, I am sure,

Often accelerates one’s cure.

So let us patients do our bit 

To help the surgeons make us fit. 

Footnote 1

In India there are several more 

With extra faces, up to four, 

But both in Brahma and in Shiva 

I own myself an unbeliever.

Geetha

The Vision of Judgment by Lord Byron

I

Saint Peter sat by the celestial gate:

His keys were rusty, and the lock was dull,

So little trouble had been given of late;

Not that the place by any means was full,

But since the Gallic era 'eight-eight'

The devils had ta'en a longer, stronger pull,

And 'a pull altogether,' as they say

At sea — which drew most souls another way.

II

The angels all were singing out of tune,

And hoarse with having little else to do,

Excepting to wind up the sun and moon,

Or curb a runaway young star or two,

Or wild colt of a comet, which too soon

Broke out of bounds o'er th' ethereal blue,

Splitting some planet with its playful tail,

As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale.

III

The guardian seraphs had retired on high,

Finding their charges past all care below;

Terrestrial business fill'd nought in the sky

Save the recording angel's black bureau;

Who found, indeed, the facts to multiply

With such rapidity of vice and woe,

That he had stripp'd off both his wings in quills,

And yet was in arrear of human ills.

IV

His business so augmented of late years,

That he was forced, against his will no doubt,

(Just like those cherubs, earthly ministers,)

For some resource to turn himself about,

And claim the help of his celestial peers,

To aid him ere he should be quite worn out

By the increased demand for his remarks:

Six angels and twelve saints were named his clerks.

V

This was a handsome board — at least for heaven;

And yet they had even then enough to do,

So many conqueror's cars were daily driven,

So many kingdoms fitted up anew;

Each day too slew its thousands six or seven,

Till at the crowning carnage, Waterloo,

They threw their pens down in divine disgust —

The page was so besmear'd with blood and dust.

VI

This by the way: 'tis not mine to record

What angels shrink from: even the very devil

On this occasion his own work abhorr'd,

So surfeited with the infernal revel:

Though he himself had sharpen'd every sword,

It almost quench'd his innate thirst of evil.

(Here Satan's sole good work deserves insertion —

'Tis, that he has both generals in reveration.)

VII

Let's skip a few short years of hollow peace,

Which peopled earth no better, hell as wont,

And heaven none — they form the tyrant's lease,

With nothing but new names subscribed upon't;

'Twill one day finish: meantime they increase,

'With seven heads and ten horns,' and all in front,

Like Saint John's foretold beast; but ours are born

Less formidable in the head than horn.

VIII

In the first year of freedom's second dawn

Died George the Third; although no tyrant, one

Who shielded tyrants, till each sense withdrawn

Left him nor mental nor external sun:

A better farmer ne'er brush'd dew from lawn,

A worse king never left a realm undone!

He died — but left his subjects still behind,

One half as mad — and t'other no less blind.

IX

He died! his death made no great stir on earth:

His burial made some pomp; there was profusion

Of velvet, gilding, brass, and no great dearth

Of aught but tears — save those shed by collusion.

For these things may be bought at their true worth;

Of elegy there was the due infusion —

Bought also; and the torches, cloaks, and banners,

Heralds, and relics of old Gothic manners,

X

Form'd a sepulchral melo-drame. Of all

The fools who flack's to swell or see the show,

Who cared about the corpse? The funeral

Made the attraction, and the black the woe.

There throbbed not there a thought which pierced the pall;

And when the gorgeous coffin was laid low,

It seamed the mockery of hell to fold

The rottenness of eighty years in gold.

Geeta

A Warning on Spontaneous Combustion

by Stuart McLean

O whisky is the king of drinks,

Renowned the world o’er,

But here’s a word o’ caution,

Tae think of when ye pour.

There’s a certain combination,

That tastes so very good,

But when it hits your tummy,

And mixes with your food.

That’s when the trouble starts,

For yer pleasure hits overload,

And half an hour later,

Ye’ll suddenly explode.

So there ye are in the pub,

Completely engulfed in flames,

And yer good wife’s dashing home,

Tae lodge insurance claims.

Well now that I have told ye,

Don’t say ye’ve no’ been warned,

So don’t try it oot yersel’,

Or ye’ll soon be bein’ mourned.

Devika

The Jumblies by Edward Lear

I

They went to sea in a Sieve, they did,

   In a Sieve they went to sea:

In spite of all their friends could say,

On a winter’s morn, on a stormy day,

   In a Sieve they went to sea!

And when the Sieve turned round and round,

And every one cried, ‘You’ll all be drowned!’

They called aloud, ‘Our Sieve ain’t big,

But we don’t care a button! we don’t care a fig!

   In a Sieve we’ll go to sea!’

      Far and few, far and few,

         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

      Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

 

 

II

 

They sailed away in a Sieve, they did,

   In a Sieve they sailed so fast,

With only a beautiful pea-green veil

Tied with a riband by way of a sail,

   To a small tobacco-pipe mast;

And every one said, who saw them go,

‘O won’t they be soon upset, you know!

For the sky is dark, and the voyage is long,

And happen what may, it’s extremely wrong

   In a Sieve to sail so fast!’

      Far and few, far and few,

         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

      Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

 

 

III

 

The water it soon came in, it did,

   The water it soon came in;

So to keep them dry, they wrapped their feet

In a pinky paper all folded neat,

   And they fastened it down with a pin.

And they passed the night in a crockery-jar,

And each of them said, ‘How wise we are!

Though the sky be dark, and the voyage be long,

Yet we never can think we were rash or wrong,

   While round in our Sieve we spin!’

      Far and few, far and few,

         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

      Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

 

 

IV

 

And all night long they sailed away;

   And when the sun went down,

They whistled and warbled a moony song

To the echoing sound of a coppery gong,

   In the shade of the mountains brown.

‘O Timballo! How happy we are,

When we live in a sieve and a crockery-jar,

And all night long in the moonlight pale,

We sail away with a pea-green sail,

   In the shade of the mountains brown!’

      Far and few, far and few,

         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

     Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

 

 

V

 

They sailed to the Western Sea, they did,

   To a land all covered with trees,

And they bought an Owl, and a useful Cart,

And a pound of Rice, and a Cranberry Tart,

   And a hive of silvery Bees.

And they bought a Pig, and some green Jack-daws,

And a lovely Monkey with lollipop paws,

And forty bottles of Ring-Bo-Ree,

   And no end of Stilton Cheese.

      Far and few, far and few,

         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

      Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

 

 

VI

 

And in twenty years they all came back,

   In twenty years or more,

And every one said, ‘How tall they’ve grown!’

For they’ve been to the Lakes, and the Torrible Zone,

   And the hills of the Chankly Bore;

And they drank their health, and gave them a feast

Of dumplings made of beautiful yeast;

And everyone said, ‘If we only live,

We too will go to sea in a Sieve,—

   To the hills of the Chankly Bore!’

      Far and few, far and few,

         Are the lands where the Jumblies live;

      Their heads are green, and their hands are blue,

         And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Arundhaty

A Lovely Hand

by Anonymous

Last night I held a lovely hand,

It was so small and neat,

I thought my heart with joy would burst

So wild was every beat.

No other hand unto my heart

Could greater pleasure bring

Than the one so dear I held last night.

Four Aces and a King

Eating Habits

by Alan Balter

Tomato sauce I'm at a loss

I simply don't know why

Hardly ever, really never

Spots a worn out tie

But wear a new one, a costly blue one

A fancy silken job

If you're like me; I guarantee

With gravy, you're a slob

Spicy mustard, chocolate custard

Everybody knows

Never spill and never will

When you're wearing your old clothes

But brand new pants don't have a chance

Hanging on your hips

Melted cheese, with shocking ease

Drips right off your lips

So let's suppose food really knows

When you're dressed up fancy

I'd still conclude that eating nude

Would be very chancy.