Post Your Zany, Ironic and Funny Poems Here!

[Wombat]

Having spent a good deal of yesterday trying to think of songs that would depress people more than the next poster, I kept thinking of songs and poems I couldn't post on that thread but which I'd like to share. So here's a thread for all those poems (and songs) that didn't qualify but which you would have liked to share anyway. Here's a start.

SAID HANRAHAN by John O'Brien


"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
In accents most forlorn,
Outside the church, ere Mass began,
One frosty Sunday morn.


The congregation stood about,
Coat-collars to the ears,
And talked of stock, and crops, and drought,
As it had done for years.


"It's looking crook," said Daniel Croke;
"Bedad, it's cruke, me lad,
For never since the banks went broke
Has seasons been so bad."


"It's dry, all right," said young O'Neil,
With which astute remark
He squatted down upon his heel
And chewed a piece of bark.


And so around the chorus ran
"It's keepin' dry, no doubt."
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out."


"The crops are done; ye'll have your work
To save one bag of grain;
From here way out to Back-o'-Bourke
They're singin' out for rain.


"They're singin' out for rain," he said,
"And all the tanks are dry."
The congregation scratched its head,
And gazed around the sky.


"There won't be grass, in any case,
Enough to feed an ass;
There's not a blade on Casey's place
As I came down to Mass."


"If rain don't come this month," said Dan,
And cleared his throat to speak -
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"If rain don't come this week."


A heavy silence seemed to steal
On all at this remark;
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed a piece of bark.


"We want an inch of rain, we do,"
O'Neil observed at last;
But Croke "maintained" we wanted two
To put the danger past.


"If we don't get three inches, man,
Or four to break this drought,
We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out."


In God's good time down came the rain;
And all the afternoon
On iron roof and window-pane
It drummed a homely tune.


And through the night it pattered still,
And lightsome, gladsome elves
On dripping spout and window-sill
Kept talking to themselves.


It pelted, pelted all day long,
A-singing at its work,
Till every heart took up the song
Way out to Back-o'-Bourke.


And every creek a banker ran,
And dams filled overtop;
"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"If this rain doesn't stop."


And stop it did, in God's good time;
And spring came in to fold
A mantle o'er the hills sublime
Of green and pink and gold.


And days went by on dancing feet,
With harvest-hopes immense,
And laughing eyes beheld the wheat
Nid-nodding o'er the fence.


And, oh, the smiles on every face,
As happy lad and lass
Through grass knee-deep on Casey's place
Went riding down to Mass.


While round the church in clothes genteel
Discoursed the men of mark,
And each man squatted on his heel,
And chewed his piece of bark.


"There'll be bush-fires for sure, me man,
There will, without a doubt;
We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out."


Around the Boree Log and Other Verses, 1921

[Wombat]

Here's another favourite, this time by Michael Hartnett.

The Ghost of Billy Mulvihill

"While looking out my window in the heart of Dublin 4
The ghost of Billy Mulvihill was walking by my door.

What was he doin' walkin' on Upper Leeson Street?
A cardboard suitcase in his hand and hobnails on his feet
He flashed up at my window his old big toothed grin
But I moved back in the shadows and I wouldn't let him in

As I moved behind the curtain and beat a cowards retreat,
The ghost of Billy Mulvihill walked up Leeson Street
He vanished in the traffic his suitcase full of sin,
I knew he wanted comfort but I wouldn't let him in

That night as I sat writing the clock said nearly four,
The ghost of Billy Mulvihill stood on my kitchen floor
'The fight you're fighting Mikey is a fight you'll never win'
But I locked the door inside my head and I did not let him in..."

This is a song as well as a poem now Sean Tyrrell has set it to music and sang it on his great album The Orchard.

[Jack]

I never saw a purple cow. I never hope to see one.
I can tell you anyhow, I'd rather see than be one.

Does that count?

[dubhlinn]

Another Version.

I never saw a purple cow and with tears my eyes are full.
I never saw a purple cow,and I am a purple Bull.

Slan,
D.

[Wombat]

They both fit under zany I think, at least.

[dubhlinn]

From Liverpool poet Roger McGough.

Let me die a youngman's death

Let me die a youngman's death
not a clean and inbetween
the sheets holywater death
not a famous-last-words
peaceful out of breath death.

When I'm 73
and in constant good tumour
May I be mown down at dawn
by a bright red sports car
on my way home
from an allnight party

Or when I'm 91
with silver hair
and sitting in a barber's chair
my rival gangsters
with hamfisted tommyguns burst in
and give me a short back and insides

Or when I'm 104
and banned from the Cavern
may my mistress
catching me in bed with her daughter
and fearing for her son
cut me up into little pieces
and throw away every piece but one

Let me die a youngman's death
not a free from sin tiptoe in
candle wax and waning death
not a curtains drawn by angels borne
'what a nice way to go' death.

Slan,
D.

[Wombat]

D, you obviously want a Mulvihill death rather than a Hanrahan death. But can these things be arranged?

[Wombat]

The neighbour on the other side,
Has just comitted suicide,
A very pleasant man,
We used to share a watering can,
There'll be an inquest I suppose,
And now I'll have to buy a hose.

A.P. Herbert

[emmline]

The entirety of "The Cremation of Sam McGee," by Robert Service, is
available here: http://www.wordfocus.com/wordactcremation.html

Here is the refrain:
There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By the men who moil for gold;
The Arctic trails have their secret tales
That would make your blood run cold;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
But the queerest they ever did see
Was that night on the marge of Lake Lebarge
I cremated Sam McGee.

My grandfather always wanted to read that to me when I was a kid,
and he only got me to sit through it once or twice.
It has since achieved Classic status in my mind.

[Loren]

Hey, this reminds me: When's the next C&F Haiku contest Dale?

Loren

[Dale]

I cried because I had no shoes
And then I met a man who had no class.

[Wormdiet]

Roses are red
Violets are blue
You think this will rhyme
but it won't.

[Nanohedron]

I cried because I had no shoes
And then I met a man who had no class.

LOL!!

[dubhlinn]

D, you obviously want a Mulvihill death rather than a Hanrahan death. But can these things be arranged?

I suppose not. Procrastination is a wonderful thing in these circumstances.

Accepted


You are no longer young,
Nor are you very old.
There are homes where those belong.
You know you do not fit
When you observe the cold
Stares of those who sit

In bath-chairs or the park
(A stick, then, at their side)
Or find yourself in the dark
And see the lovers who,
In love and in their stride,
Don't even notice you.

This is a time to begin
Your life. It could be new.
The sheer not fitting in
With the old who envy you
And the young who want to win,
Not knowing false from true,

Means you have liberty
Denied to their extremes.
At last now you can be
What the old cannot recall
And the young long for in dreams,
Yet still include them all.

Elizabeth Jennings

[scottielvr]

Woo-hoo! A perfect thread for some Dorothy Parker.

One Perfect Rose

A single flow'r he sent me, since we met.
All tenderly his messenger he chose;
Deep-hearted, pure, with scented dew still wet --
One perfect rose.

I knew the language of the floweret:
`My fragile leaves,' it said, `his heart enclose'.
Love long has taken for his amulet
One perfect rose.

Why is it no one ever sent me yet
One perfect limousine, do you suppose?
Ah no, it's always just my luck to get
One perfect rose.

Little Words

When you are gone, there is nor bloom nor leaf,
Nor singing sea at night, nor silver birds;
And I can only stare, and shape my grief
In little words.

I cannot conjure loveliness, to drown
The bitter woe that racks my cords apart.
The weary pen that sets my sorrow down
Feeds at my heart.

There is no mercy in the shifting year,
No beauty wraps me tenderly about.
I turn to little words—so you, my dear,
Can spell them out.

=================================

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Roumania.

=================================
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