Collected Poetry

 

Poems and Stories  

 

1,234 rhymes and stories in rhyme

Click on Links and Individual Titles

 

VOLUME ONE ( 1986-2009 )   |   VOLUME TWO  ( 2008-2009 )    |   VOLUME THREE  ( 2010 )    |   VOLUME FOUR  ( 2010 ) 

VOLUME FIV( 2011 )    |   VOLUME SI( 2011 )   |   VOLUME SEVEN  ( 2012 )    |   VOLUME EIGHT  ( 2013 )

VOLUME NINE  ( 2013 )    |   VOLUME TEN  ( 2014 )     VOLUME ELEVEN ( 2015 )    VOLUME TWELVE  ( 2016 )

VOLUME THIRTEEN  ( 2016-17 )    VOLUME FOURTEEN  ( 2018 )    VOLUME FIFTEEN  ( 2019 )

VOLUME SIXTEEN  (2020)      VOLUME SEVENTEEN  (2020)    |    VOLUME EIGHTEEN  (2021)    |    VOLUME NINETEEN  (2022-23)

STORIES IN RHYME

 

A   B   C   D   E   F   G   H     J   K   L   M   N   O   P   Q   R   S   T   U   V   W   X   Y   Z

 

The addenda and footnotes to rhymes are continually updated to illustrate the many themes in rhyme,

as to offer citations from many sources and a number of perspectives.    [ 1 ]

 

"Criticize by creating." Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475-1564)    [ 2 ]

 

"L'homme n'est rien, l'oeuvre tout."   Gustave Flaubert  (1821-1880)

< /sarc >

¯\_(?)_/¯

'07 and then 4

2 = 1

2-by-4

30 to 6 - cruel carbon tricks

7,700,000,000 for H20 - that's a lot of watery dough

 

A

A Better Life Awaits

A Canary in a Coal Mine

A cat may look at the haughtiest king

A catchy tune abhorred a deaf dove - paraphrase of Joachim Ringelnatz

A clever pile of molecules

A clip job - the way to legally rob

A comedian - paraphrase of a Joachim Ringelnatz poem

A Commencement Address Without a Bill Attached

A Concoction Song

A Countdown Song - counting upwards to down

A cruel mistress

A damn fine idea

A distinction should be made

A drunken poet - paraphrase of a Gotthold Ephraim Lessing poem

A fat cat's fat

A gaggle at Google did giggle - alleged 'unprecedented research censorship'

A Government of Shame - a composer's view

A Government Song

A Greek drama - semi colon and comma

A Hearty Menu

A hundred bucks - aw-gee, aw-shucks

A Lawyer's Lesson

A Litany of Finger Pointing - in Songs for the Victims of AIDS

A Litany of Symptoms -  in Love Songs for Dorothy

A Little Slight of Hand

A Losing Proposition - eye on a lousy investor

A lukewarm prayer  - the opposition's snare

A Messenger from God

A Modern Observation on The Anti-War Movement - "Where have all the critics gone, long time passing?"

A Modern Observation on The Anti-War Movement, Revisited - "All we are saying is give peace a chance"

A Modern Observation on The Anti-War Movement, Trading Places - "It just depends on who does it"

A Modern Observation on The Anti-War Movement, We Bomb Back Better - "the establishment's back"

A nonny mouse's New Year's greeting

A Nuremberg Defense - the pretense of making sense

A politician thinks

A sameness in the story

A Scientific Hit

A Shrovetide Tale - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

A Sing-Song Song to Sing

A slur is not an argument

A spasm of isms

A State of War

A steady diet - it's news to me

A Sunday in New York

A Sunshiny Thought

A Tale of Lords, told by a Serf

A threat to my democracy

A Ticklish Spot

A Tiny Lie

A Unicorn Named Ira

A Vase of Carnations

A World of Numbers

A Working Class Classified

Absolutely

Act of God

Advice for Not-so-evil Us
Advice to the Pessimist

After-dinner Mint - answering Samuel Barber

After math

Ain't it a pisser? - right in the kisser

Albert Gore -- a study in the massive acquisition of capital

All God's Chillun Got Credit Cards

All heard and none believed

All is one

All the news is screaming

All Things in Moderation - pabulum

Almost democracy

Always question everything

America the Bountiful

America the Dutiful

American Cads

An ant hill knows

An apple is like a cat

an aspect of art

An inconvenient surprise - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

An irrational anthem - sung to the tune, "America the Beautiful," music by Samuel A. Ward (1847-1903), with a nod to Ambrose Bierce's "A Rational Anthem"

And there again it is - the same old foam and fizz

Anne O'Malley - down the dillydally alley

Answers

Answers exist

Anthem of the Academic Left

Anti-capitalism struggles - a curriculum of sorts

Any claim can be made - a truth of a lie's charade

Any day now, believe you me

Any day now, truth'll be told - while lying pretense is growing cold

anythingis - that new old refrain

Apocalypse sometime

Apple-crapple

Are you anti-fascist?

Are you atop the system you say is racist, pal?

Argument Postponed

Armed peace - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

Arrogance danced with Ignorance

Art - you take a part

As to a peaceful Sunday

At one end of the rope

At his mirror - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

At the trough

Attributed to - thoughts on a phrase in use

Auntie Capital

Average Joe

 

B
Bad advice - so seeming nice

Bad Little Boys

Bagdad Bob and Tokyo Rose

Ballad of the Love Child

Bankrupt green

Bankrupt riches - the data snitches

Banned Music in the Ivied League - just the latest Heil to 'sieg'

Barking mad?

Based upon their race

Become not too attached to yourself

Beethoven ripped

Bernie got it right

Bernie got it wrong

Berövade - vade retro

Better for all the world

Between rhetoric and reality - on the reality of socialist Cuba's healthcare system

Bird Songs (three poems - rhymed paraphrases of Wilhelm Busch poems)

Black and white

Black and White, part deux

Black Markets

Black on black is hard to read - a companion piece to screed

Blackwing numbered Six-O-Two

Blame

Blind equality

Bold bad beard

Boost the booster

Boss man, boss man

Boys and girls and whirls of noise

Bureaucracy - paraphrase of Joachim Ringelnatz poem

Breaking of the Hands  - so politics commands

Bright Boys

Bring presents to the party

Brittle Little

Broke - someone spoke

Bubbles

Bugs Bunny Votes

Bulls

Burglars do that

Burn, Baby, Burn

Burn, Baby, Burn II

Bursting Bubbles

Busted

Busy as a little bee

But maybe oh just maybe

Buy the lie and kill the truth

By 2010 - an attack of look back

By Rivers of Thought

 

C

Can and can't

Can of worms

Can you keep a secret?

Capital for Communists - a story growing old

Capital for Communists II

Carbontology

Cardboard - depending on whose ox is being gored

Career Politicians' Questions

Cash flow - a parody on Cole Porter's classic song, "True Love"

Cash in
Casino

Cassandra and Cassandras

Cast the first stone

Chagall is toast

Chains

Chant for a change

Chased Away

Checkmate

Cherished Cultural Myths - to maintain power and influence

Chicago Poem

Chicago Poem II

Chicago Poem III

Chicago Poem IV

Chicago Poem V

Chicago Poem VI

Chicago Poem VII

Chicanery

Child's play / in the City by the Bay

Chilling comments hot

Chocolate trees

Choice

Choose violent upheaval? - from Stalin, a retrieval

Chump Change

Chump Change - variations on "Mulberry Bush"

Cigarette Smoke -  in Love Songs for Dorothy

Circle you are

Civilized - paraphrase of a Christian Morgenstern poem

Clever Death, Stupid Death - in Songs for the Victims of AIDS

Climb a mountain of ignorance

Clutch those pearls! - first world swirls

Cock-Up

Coexist

Cold hard cash

Color me skeptical

Color swatches

Colors

Comes the day

Comfortable and convenient

Communism's capitalism, don't you see? - seventy years. wrenchingly
Conjugating Hitler

connect the dots

Consensus

Continents do not float

Corruption

Corruption continuing

Corruption has a middle name

Cosmopolitan corvids

Could and May - an up-to-date play

Cousin Francis' Donkey Ride - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

Crazy

Creative Folklore - to help your energy bills soar

Criminal Truth

Crisis

Critics

Crush the bourgeoisie

Cycles - here today, though gone tomorrow

 

D
Damn those predictions

Darwin's God

David slew Goliath

Dazzling - not economically frazzling

De fault in de plan

Dead soon enough

Dear deer - paraphrase of a Christian Morgenstern poem

Death in peacetime

Death Knell for the Maids

Dear Elsie Pee kills - on the LCP

Debt - you bet!

Debt and more debt - governments are the threat

Decline to comment

Default on Debt - the game of centuries

Deficits

Degrees on the wall

Democracy is radical

Democracy is stupid

Demographical Husbandry

Desack (roll eyes)

Dick, you're supposed to have gone off somewhere

Dictionary - quite contrary

Diogenes and the bad boys of Corinth, a Grecian story - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

Disapproval

Disarm the arms - in the Machiavellian farms

Disjunct

Dissent

Diversity

Divine the panic

Divine was the panic - sometime later

Dizzy Dent

Drink yourself sober

Do it your own way

Do not be greatly unhappy - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

Do not ever - stay too clever

Do not just hold a vigil

Do not laugh - paraphrase of a text by Wilhelm Busch

Do you remember the good old days?

Do you think this dreary game -  paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

Doctor doctors

Doctor Larger-Problems

Doctor Oppression comes to call

Doing the math - blindly on politics' path

Don't argue with me

Don't look now

Doses of Delusion

Double down on failure

Down the drain

Down the runway with a strut

Downly down with the struggle

Dry

Dump your trash in the street - a little tale, greenly sweet

 

E

Earth Hour Follies

Easy comes hard

Economics 101

Eden round, there went a great wall - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

Either One or the Other

Embarrassed -  a political maneuver by we Democrats

Empowering feminism - a parody on "I Am Woman" (first released 1971) by Helen Reddy and singer-songwriter Ray Burton.

End Game

Enemy

Enemies of Capitalism

Equality

Equality for all - darkness will fall

Eric Satie écrivait

Erotic vaudeville - paraphrase of an Alfred Lichtenstein poem

Errors - a socialist's confession

Essie sees

Eternity stretches out unending - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

Europe 4 all? Yea!

Everybody should

Everything is bias

Everything within -- an original sin

Everything's about my colored skin - (or sadly, Why racism works)

Everything's about some Chinese skin - more racial politics to serve the mandarin

Everything's about some "you ain't" skin - revealing the politics that lies within

Everything's about their colored skin - the game begins to wear quite thin

Everything's about your colored skin - (or sadly, why these games begin)

Everywhere is a wonderland - paraphrase of a Joachim Ringelnatz poem

Evil lies hidden - until the time it's bidden

Excessive Demand

Extremely Green - wrong for more than forty years

Eye on the news

Examinations -  towards abrogations

Experts say

 

F

Fa Queue - there's no debating you

Failing to plan -- flailing's in view

Failure

Farmers and Alarmers

Fascist is as fascist does - a little bug inside of me

Fat cats richly rich of late - a comparative and sourced criticism of the nouveau "fair share" folks

Fat, fat government

Fear - a litany for today

Fem inanity

Fetters of convention

Fiblical Prophecy

Fido Filet

Fifteen minutes

First

Fled from empty market shelves - a history lesson

Floccinaucinihilipilification

Flower Pot - paraphrase of a poem by Pierre-Jules-Théophile Gautier

Fluidity

Follow, chant in uni, son

Follow the book - don't overlook

Food Chain - inhumane?
Foolish men were ruling

Fools and an ass - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

Fools' delight

Fool's Gold - a wonder to behold

For me, but not for thee?

For minootes toidytree sekunds

For want of inspiration
For Your Common Good - in the fat cat neighborhood

Fortune smiles - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

Four Christs of Ypsilanti

Four Nonsense Rhymes

Freddie and Fannie and Barney and Frank

Free

Free bees - nature's tale

Free is running out of cash

Free-market reforms

Free Money

Free speech, hate speech

Freedom is freedom is freedom

Freedom is the pits - a revolution waves

Freedom knows no color

French Lesson en anglais - mêmes choses, mais en pire

Freshly out of options
Friend Or Foe

From Ivied Walls and Tower

From one fountainhead

Fugue
Full Circle

Fun ding - repeat the repetition

Fund Raising

Fusspots and nannypants

 

G

Game

Gecko Squashing

Gee, how hard is that?

Gendered chess - each stale mate nevertheless

George the Bush

Get up with fleas

Gimme

Give 'em the ole razzle-dazzle

Globaloney - sung to the children's tune, "Baa, baa black sheep"
Glory

God ain't white

god is dead

Golden goose

Good

Good little party members

Good old Doctor Psychopath - on a pedophile's aftermath

Good Old Obfuscation

Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha

Govern or not, here he comes

Government numbers - just words
Government Speaks

Grace Before Meals

Gram are is

Grasshopper

Grease

Grease the Skids - a variant of slippery folk

Greedy - the eighth dwarf is needy

Green drivel - love locks, dead

Green growth

Green Job

green screws red - lights or bread

Grievance

Growth in debt - a non-sequitur

Guns for me

 

H

Hang

Happy Ending - Happy Feet's a tasty treat

Happy PD - public domain breaks the chain

Hardships

Hate speech - rate speech

He allows us? - boxing in cages

Have you just a singular view, politically for all?

Hedonism - clarified

He plunks his money down

Heading down the same dark path

Heavenly Days -  from Hot House Ballads

Hector Bullhorn

He's the bride

Hen Party - a eunuch's cluck

Heroes' Tale - small and stale

Hey diddle diddle

High horse

Hillarious - with two l's, because misspelling can be fun

Hippogrizzly -  a zoological fantasy
History Lesson

Hogwash

Hollywood's helium

Holy moly! Take a chance

Home with a Mask  - (To the melody, "Home on the Range," a classic Western folk song)

Homily Grits

Hook, line and sinker - on hegemonic dominance

Hot and Blue - from Hot House Ballads

Hot House -  from Hot House Ballads

Hot House Ballads (four poems)

Hotel Stupidity - checking in is easy

How is it - questions not in the news

How it happens

How it works

How it's pictured, how it's seen - images and what we mean

How much is that politician's favor? - (To the melody, "That Doggie in the Window?," composed in 1952 by Bob Merrill)

Human Nature

Human thug rights

Hurt Feelings

Hymn for Modernity's Latest Religion

Hymn for Today

 

I

I am god, and I'm in charge

I am traveled - paraphrase of a text by Hans Bötticher

I believe - to what I cleave

I believe in Europe - but not the shifting lines

I can't, I simply can't - a postmodern student rant

Iconoclast - the urge for funds is vast

Icy ducks go skating - paraphrase of a Christian Morgenstern 'pome'

I do not give a damn

I do recall I don't recall

I don't care

I found a toy in dry caked dirt

I go I went

I have a little -ism - sung to the tune of "I Have a Little Dreidel," original lyrics by Samuel S. Grossman and music by S. E. Goldfarb.

I likes a nekked lady

I learned the answer, yes

I love to be proven wrong

I mean to help

I might

I Need Another Credit Card

I need no boots

I never met a philosophy

I prefer a vital God

I saw

I see race in everything - six sad stanzas not to sing

I Shall Believe the Socialist

I shall not join street protests

I shall not join the party

I squeezed the golden goose

I swim along in music's streams

I want to spend - drowning in the deep end

I will tinker as I please

Icarus meets the sun

Ice Cream - a modern litany ad hominem

I'd like to fill the void that God once occupied - a reflection on secular modernity

I'm amazed at my good fortune

I'm from off, so I've been told

I'm gonna git cha

I've trillions of friends

Idea - hist whist fist

Ideas knock

Ideologue

Ideology

Idle days

If Chicago were a war zone

If the facts don't fit the theory

If it's serious, you lie

If life is worth the living

If one traffics in rumors

If we cannot discuss - What's all the fuss?

If you -nonsensically true

If you but were

If you find your conformity

If you've nothing

If you've some personal dragon to slay

Ill annoy - punning ploy

I'll use my freedom

I'm done with my complaining - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Müller poem

I'm gonna guide you to the promised land - a story quite like others

I'm sorry

I'm very fond of Cummings' words

Imagine, as a parody - to the tune "Imagine," by John Lennon (circa 1971)

Immediate and drastic action - hysteria gaining traction

Immunity - with impunity

In a boiling bath - paraphrase of a Joachim Ringelnatz poem

In a Church Parking Lot

In a kindly manner

In a moment of candor - a Democrat spoke

In a world of make-believe - at its end one learns to grieve

In black-and-white

In the abstract it wasn't me

In the workers' paradise - in the Stalinist state

Inappropriate Things

Incidents of Idiocy

Income Inequality

Incompetence - from whence to thence

Increasingly outdated - costs are being tabulated

Infection

Instructed not to intervene

Invitation to the dance

Islam is identified - a litany for April 2019

Islamic Islamophobia

Islamophobia

Islamophobia revisited - a thumbnail sketch of tolerance and inter-religious dialogues

It Doesn't Help
It Is Not Fair

It was a cross - in Songs for the Victims of AIDS

It's a gas

It helps to be crazy

It's lovely to learn a new sterling phrase

It's nuts to be a student

It's only a matter of....

It's populist

It's puzzling

It's sure I'm a racist

It's the little tidbits that I like

It's too good to be true - this applies to you

It's too hot, and it's too cold - a cabaret song in the Russian style

I've got a one-trick pony - a mascot for the phony

I've lifted your wallet

I've made up my little mind

 

J

Jack and Jill

Jackass

Jewish nigger

Johnnie's got - Tommy rot

Johnny B Blue and Suzy Q

Jones' little van

Judas goat

Jumbled -  in Love Songs for Dorothy

Just Because

Just because you say it loud

Just two

Justice - depending on the meaning of the word

 

K

Kick the can - most governments' plan

Kicks

Killer kills killer

Knee cheese - sum non sense

Kurfürstenstraße 115/116

 

L

Language brags

Language gauges

Large kitties

Late October

Lazy Bones

Leadership Failure - spoke a failed leader

Leave me be

Leave off the questions - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

Left and Right

Left in an open book - it couldn't hurt to take a look

Left is Right, as Right is Left

Left to their own devices

Lemmings

Lessons Are

Let us feign surprise again

let's - do postmodern pirouettes

Let's all define all our terms

Let's all gorge

Let's All Sacrifice

Let's all go to the funeral

Let's borrow - a nonsense poem for these modern times

Let's gather up all tyrannies by their several names

Let's have some quail, by George

Let's replace your tyranny

Let's speak truth to power

Let's take that leaking lifeboat

Liberal is conservative

Life - in Three Songs for Roger
Light the Lamps

Like a Duck to Water

Lit from within - for my friend, Julie

Little is enough

Little loyal lap dog
Little Man

Little Marcy Busy-Pants

Little Miss Information

Little Miss Management

Little Questions

Lockdown Tony, like Lockdown Neil

Lockdown Tony and a Chinese Communist

Log rolling

Logically speaking

Look behind those walls of words

Love - in Three Songs for Roger

Love is cool or love is hot

Love Songs for Dorothy - An appreciation of Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

Love the little lemmings

Love you, too! - by the numbers

Lying continues -  government flexing its sinews

 

M

Made in China

Mandate waste

Manhattan dance party

Manny Festo's Presto Change-o

Martiniade - paraphrase of Joachim Ringelnatz

May and might

May morning - paraphrase of a Christian Morgenstern poem

Me - a pronoun's tale

Meaning-free words in rhyme

Media, media, media

Meetings

Menu à la carte - the senator's not so smart

Merry-go-round

Metaphor

Mice like men

Mind the gap

Miniaturized

Minor trifles

Mirages

Miss Gender

Miss Piggy Yet?

Missus Pee

Mister, I've seen

Mister Big Top Green

Mister I Know Best

Modern Art

Modern Slavery
Modern Times and Charity

Mollycoddle the models

Moocherism

Moolah

Money makes the whirled go round

Monroe the Bear

Moral Relativism - verses and refrain

More for less

Mostly white, one sees at night - the American Left's delight in spite

More Sticks and Stones

Moving Day

Murderous murderer murdered -  "M " as in the myth of Che Guevara

Musical Chairs

Musical Chairs Continued

Musicological Marx - patter song variations on "Mademoiselle from Armentières"

Musicology

Much

Mulligan Stew - a recipe inverse

Music chose me

My Faults

My High School History Class

My way or the highway

 

N

National Eyes

Naturally no one steals anything

Nemesis met Hubris

Never, Ever Call It Greed

Never forget

Never judge a book? - how to act the schnook

Never knock your betters down

New lies swapped out for the old

New Year's- one, two, three

Nightmareland

Ninety-nine

No Asterisk

No Body Blues -  from Hot House Ballads

No correct arithmetic

No Dignity - and now comes repayment

No God is the god for me - a musing on amusing atheists

No longer finding profits
No matter

No More Nonsense

No moss growing on this rock

No One Likes "I Told You So"

No Place - no space, no grace, no trace

No Scrutiny

No Wizards

Noah's Ark - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Müller poem

Nobel for Today

None of your damn business
Nonsense

Not as bad as he is depicted

Not sick is sick

Not what we say

Now how does that seem to a lender like you? - a run-around

nuttin like a goal

 

O

O dear those lips - a psalm for the future through a look to the past

O golly

O pen a letter for all time

O shitty, little cities in the dell

O so very

Obit

Occam's Razor

Odd, is it not?

Ode to the Indiana Teachers Union - a coerced communion

Off - at the trough

Offertory - an anthem of irony

Oh, beautiful the razor wire

Oh it's always someone else's fault

Oh so kind

Oh, what a tangled web we weave

Old Age Blues

Old-fashioned

Old Joe and his kin are gone insane

Old Radicals

Ole time religion

Ollie Garx and Karly Marx

Oh, fence! - in its present tense

Oh, to Walk a While in Hitler's Shoes - a cabaret song
On a Candidate's Platform

On a Winter's Day

On the isle of crutches

On the Old Modern Malaise

Once a paper

Once upon a time

One can know when one had learned

One day

One day a leopard thought - on consequences' juggernaut

One more for the road

One plus one equals cat

One seeks

One World

Oops

Opaque Transparency

Opposites

Orange - know thing rimes

Original sin
Orwell's Pigs

Other

Out of control - crime takes its toll

Over man and under man

 

P

Pander Bear

Papa Bach

Parasites accustomed

Parataxis prophylaxis - it's syntaxis round a roamin' axis

Parliament - paraphrase of a Joachim Ringelnatz poem

Partisan artisan - most news is a ruse

Pass the foie gras

Passed on to you

Passing the time of day

Passive? Quiz him!

Past Tense Verbs

Patterned visibly

Peace at all costs

People before profits

People like to freeload

People walk away

Perfect Sense

Perfecting society

Peter's pence

Pie

Pierre, Pierre who is never really there
Pig

Pigs don't fly

Pinocchio knows - the passing years expose

Phil owed Sophie's - whence non sense

Plan

Platitudes meet realities

Play a stupid game

Pleas, no thank you

Please don't feed

Pleasant words for ugly things

Plenty

Pockets
Poetry

Pogrom - after Klabund

Polar bear, polar bear

Politicians at any price

Politicians steal, so why shouldn't I?
Politics

Politics advances

Politics is where the pig

Politics' tricks

Poli-words

Ponzi states

Poodle doodle - paraphrase of a Christian Morgenstern poem

Pooped

Poor and lonely wolf

Pork Philosopher

Posit the straw man

Post-rapture Possibilities

Post-truth

Potemkin Village

Power and money

Powerless Powers

Prayer
Prayer for the Common Good

Prayer of the Revolving Door - a humble plea for more

Precisely - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

Prepare a piano

Prepositions

Preserve us - prays the privileged circus

President Cool

Pretty damn smart

Pretty darn fucked

Prince La-di-dah and gazillionaires

Privatization - publicized

Pro-choice

Profitable Irony

Progressive Conceit

Promise, cutie

Pronouns at play - so some people say

Pronouns changed

Prose and Cons

Prudence and Thrift - a hoary story
Psalm 16 - (in rhymed paraphrase)

Puccini wins every time

Pump

Puny verse - hawking one's wares

Purely Pure Purity

Purple people

Purple prose

Put the past to rest - ignore the dead oppressed

 

Q

Quaint little similes

Quatrains for Jules

Queer, don't you think

Questions In Answer to a Silly Question

Quid pro quote - for a Billy goat

 

R

Racism as your point-of-view

Racist racist theory

Raise those taxes!

Ratio

Ray shall hoax us - to make a fuss

Re: volution

Readerly and writerly - vocabulating mightily

Reading the Words Right

Reality

Reap, publican

Rearrange the words - an exercise in grammar

Recurring theme

Red

Red is a game, much like Green

Red was sprayed upon white stone

Rejecting belief - believe you me!

Removing Zeroes

Renew a bull - energy

Researchers did not realize

Reset

Response (of a drunken poet) - paraphrase of a Gotthold Ephraim Lessing poem

Responsibility

Returning the favor

Revising History

Revolution revolves but once - lèse majesté remains among its stunts

Revolutionary Economics - debt slavery

Rhetorical Tides

Rich rewards

Riff on a new word - 'just folks' public speaking skewered

Right and Wrong

Rob a Peter to Pay a Paul

Robbery

Robin Racist

Romance Novel - in Love Songs for Dorothy

Room A-460 - in Songs for the Victims of AIDS

Rose

Rules for Hunting

Run around in circles

Run for the hills! We're all gonna die!

Running of the bulls

 

S

Salvation for Today

Sam? - the Debtor Man

Sands of time

Sarah and Sandy and Sally and Sue

Save me

Saying - paraphrase of a Justinus Kerner rhyme

Scare Tactics

Science has limits

Science is method

Schisms - they're about isms

Schizotypy

Scratch a Leftist - to the tune of "Plant a Radish," from the Fantasticks

Scratch a Leftist, find a joker - more clarity in rhyme

See, shan't he? - to be sung to the 19th century sea shanty tune, "Blow the Man Down"

Seeing is believing

Seek peace and pay its cost

Seem's nice, but I'm not doin' that

Self-serviced Automat

Senator Crooked and Congressman Hoax

Serve a plate of trend du jour

Serve the poor - observing the Poverty Barons

Servitude rises

Seven Figure Numbers

Sexy acrosticjust to turn a trick

Shackles

Shakespeare, Balzac and Dumas

Shall we ignore the obvious

Shared Sacrifice

She made me do it

Shearing and Fleecing

Sheer Ignorance

Shifting Sands

Shifty

Should government be limited?

Shoveling

Showplaces intended to fool the world

Si mundus vult decipi

Sign of the times - such paradigms

Silence will steal the tune

Silly You

Simple Arithmetic

Sing a song of comments

Sing a song of stupid

Sing the words and speak the rhymes

Sir Veiled Lance

Sir Veiled Lance - the continuing dance

Sixteen trillion

Skeptic

Skepticism

Sketcherie

Slice

Slut

Small grandeur

Smoke and Mirrors

Sneak a peek

So - stupid

So a bird went into a bar....

So it was - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

So sad

So shall control come to you

So shall ism

Social Tensions

Socialism's Last Hurrah - not democracy in any town

Socialists love money
Soldiers

Solitude

Some Days Are Diamonds

Some people will

Sometimes
Songs for the Victims of AIDS (five poems)

Sounding Shapes

Spaghetti - paraphrase of a Joachim Ringelnatz poem

Speak truth to power

Special squares - with special snares

Spend what you don't have - no tonics for wreckonomics

Spot, the athlete

Spring - paraphrase of a text by Theodor Fontane

Spring again

Springing

Sshh, don't tell a soul

Stab the straw man

Starvation

State-inflicted maladies

Statistics

Steal Away

Step by step

Sticker shock

Sticks and Stones

Sticks and Stones redux

stir the pot

Stirred Up

Strike it rich

Subtracting - from a verse of Gustave Flaubert

Succinct

Suitcase

Sum advice

Surrealism Lessons

Suspected of no crime

Sweet Sung Praises

Swelled Head Lines

Systemic racism - the newest oldest game in town

 

T
Take it from me

Take Me Back to the Ball Game

Tale of the Makers and the Takers

Talk is cheap

Tan Drums

Team sports, team thwarts - on richly spoiled sports

Tell it to the ice caps

Tell Me

Tell me that you'll take my cash

Thanks, no thanks

That's how it works

That's one Freudian slip

The anti-gun guy

The Austerity Game, American Style

The Barren and the Barrenness

The big bad wolf of nations

The bill for good intentions

The Blame Buffet  - society must be made to pay

The Bureaucrat's Memo

The Classic Scheme

The Carol of Realpolitik

The Cat in the Box

The colors of man

The counters of coin

The cupboard was bare - it bares, repeating

The Dishwashers' Song

The Doomsday Clock

The Double Standard Song

The Dumb-Dumb Tree

The Dust Settles

The Easy Button

The emptied hand

The End
The End Game of Conformity

The end of the world

The evening comes, the day is past  - paraphrase of a Manfred Kyber poem

The Fruit of the Money Tree

The funniest thing - a meditation on Emma Goldman

The Game

The louder the jackass brays

The healthy now are sick

The Highway of History

The Hockey-Stick Man

The Horde of Rats - paraphrase of a poem by Heinrich Heine

The Kaiser of China - paraphrase of a poem by Heinrich Heine

The kids are screwed - a truth renewed

The Kindly Radical

The Kool-Aid doesn't really work till all are forced to drink

The lab rat and the guinea pig

The Lamp - paraphrase of a poem by Christian Morgenstern

The loftier notions - paraphrase of a poem by Wilhelm Busch

The Man

The man who knew too little

The message seems quite clear

The Modern Politician

The Modern, Super Rich

The new, wonderful good society

The New Man

The old fool - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

The old words remain

The Once Great British Bulldog
The One God, Praise

The People's Bill

The pot cracks into shards - paraphrase of an Erich Kurt Mühsam poem

The Privileges of Intellectuals

The problem attic

The promise was sweet

The question's fair

The Quilt - in Songs for the Victims of AIDS

The religion of peace

The rich - owed an American ode

The rivals cried

The Robert Reich Song - to the tune of "The farmer in the dell"

The rumors Fly - don't ask me why

The same old story - a tale grown hoary

The Scourge of the Planet

The Seller of a Bill of Goods

The Seven Days of Drinking

The Sharp Shooter

The signs go up, the signs come down

The Singer - paraphrase of a Joachim Ringelnatz poem

The small rose - paraphrase of a poem by Wilhelm Busch

The snake

The Social Democrat's Song

The Social Justice Game

The Song of the Red Nose - paraphrase of a poem by Wilhelm Busch

The Stork - paraphrase of a Heinrich Seidel poem

The straw that breaks the camel's back

The Sum and End of It  - consequences come to all

The two great religions
The Truth - no doubt about it

The turkeys vote for Christmas

The Voice Box - (Rhymed paraphrase of an Eduard Möricke nonsense poem)

The Wisest of Men

The World Is Coming To An End

Theft

Then it's obvious

There was a time I would have

There's a fad - the good with the bad

There's God and then there's Allah

There's little left to unpack

There's nothing

They

they butchered their cow for meat

They decide or you decide

They said so, so they say

They're gonna put y'all back in chains

They're not talking

Thick as thieves - an ode to goad

Thin-skinned

Things I Like

Thinking is not encouraged

This debt is your debt - a parody on Woody Guthrie's non-folk song, "This Land Is Your Land"

This speaks

This Then That - portrait of the Gordian Acrobat

Those who pay attention

Thoughts

Three Abortion Carols

Three Little Democrats

Three Songs for Roger

Three Sparrows - paraphrase of a poem by Christian Morgenstern

Three wrongs apparently make a right?

Throw Away the Mold

Time comes

Tiny picture - paraphrase of Ilse Weber

To a T - fittingly

To Party Members
To Reap Without Sowing

To such a reward I still say goodbye - paraphrase of a Joachim Ringelnatz poem

Toadies compete with kowtows - ever the game as power allows

Toil and labor praise I not! - paraphrase of a Gotthold Ephraim Lessing poem

Tolerance

Tom, Dick and Harry

Tomorrow comes - bringing maelstroms

Tonality died, so was it declared

To create and animate - rhymed paraphrase of a text by Goethe
Too

Too much debt

Top Ten List

Topsy Turvy

Totalitarian

Trendy Wendy covers up

Trolley Car

Troubles

True socialism, oh yes, he said

Trust rusts

Trust us - by the comedy routine, Bait and Switch

Trust us, said each Lucy

Trust us, so often was it said, with an authoritative air

Trying Prayer

Tube commandments

Two and fro
Two popes - slippery slopes?

Two-Party Politics

Two teared society

 

U
Uncle Casper's Red Nose - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

Understand this then! - paraphrase from Goethe's Faust!

Under funding sharks

Under the Mantle

Unexpectedly has been expected

Unicorns and jackasses

Unoriginal

Unsourced games

Unsteadiness - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

Until further notice - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

Unwise from the start - market forces and common sense dictate

Up on the little guy

Uproot the evil past

Use a kid for politics - political optics' tricks

Use a kid for politics, part two - more political optics' tricks for you

Useful idiot

 

V

Veiled Threats - a commonality

Versus

Very Veritas

Voted - not sugarcoated

 

W
Wall, fence, border, gate

Waltz of the Promiscuous

We All Believe

We cannot rule out

We drag our feet through sands of time

We Get Nothing - a kindergarten level curricula

We ran out

We really love our notion

We won't ever be like them - reality, ahem!

Wealth defends the poor? Oh sure!

Weasel Words

Wedding Shredding -- bedding, treading, sledding

Wee Hilly Winkie

Welfare for the few and rich - something akin to bait and switch

Welfare Queen

We might have called ourselves the Liberal Party

We will speak for you - authoritarian through and through

We're all gonna leave this place

We've got nothin' to do

We've got to fight these battles

What?

What About It? -  in Love Songs for Dorothy

What does it all mean?

What goes around comes around

What if many

What the hell - depletion concretion

What's a half a billion dollars

When a lie is bright exposed

When a radical comes to power

When experts disagree - as they do continually

when skin is thin

When the cash cow cashes out

When your argument's weak

When words are overused

Where does the time go?

Whether or not it's actually happened

Which

Which is it?

Which role?

White Eric and white Gavin

White is black

White Noise

Who Am I? - in Three Songs for Roger

Who decides if little you may frolic on the sand?

Who denies there's climate?

Who just says what?

Whoopi

Whoppers, lies and fabrications

Who's gonna pull the welfare wagon - a Western poem

Whose throat is it that you're at?

Why

Why leave what is good?

Wide privy ledge

Willie Sutton didn't say

With -- but not from -- to arrive at some sum

With regard to music

Witness

Wolves offer keen advice

Wonder Boy looks small and pale

Wordalacious permutations

Words of a feather - which block together

Worries - to keep the populace alarmed

Would Doctor Mengele have been so proud - hyperbole, for the hyperbolic crowd

Would it matter, anyhow? - paraphrase of a Wilhelm Busch poem

Wouldn't you like to have some cash?

Wrong is right

 

X

Xenoglossia

 

Y

Yawn

Ye shall be as gods

Yeowl

Yes, No and Maybe

Yes, we have no good answers - to be sung to the tune, "Yes! We Have No Bananas," a novelty song by Frank Silver and Irving Cohn (circa 1922)

Yesterday - in Songs for the Victims of AIDS

Yesterday is spent

You got it

You May But

You owe it to yourself

You toil - words of Abraham Lincoln

You Topia

You'll tell me who you are

You're now leaving the USA

You're Up - a historical study

You're what you do

yup

STORIES IN RHYME AND OTHER TRUE NONSENSE  by title

 

A bright, cheery song

A Short History of Mayor Potholes

An Allegory of Meals

As American as Apple Pie

Celebrate Diversity?

Donkey Skins and Elephant Hides

Downwardly mobile

Dr. Richard Chopper - truly what a whopper

Folk Tales

For the nonce, sense -- words celebrating nonsense

Jesus was a socialist?

How to kill a negro -- or would you just say no?

Kellogg-Briand - 1928

Max

Milk made sour

Old farts and young

Opposites - a Tract

Pigs plus sausages

Seeds

Simply Not Good Enough

Societal Norm - a formless form

The angry storyteller

The debtory

The fate lady sings

The Law of Logical Argument

The Nose

The Queen of Upper Downerstuff

The Resist Dance

The Slop Pails and the Pig

The Story of Innocent Bloat

The Story of Mother Mirror

The very ants

Today's Story of Waste

You're a phobic - [insert word]-ophobe

 

 

NOTES

 

[ 1 ]    Fair use is regarded as “quotation of excerpts in a review or criticism for purposes of illustration or comment; quotation of short passages in a scholarly or technical work, for illustration or clarification of the author’s observations; use in a parody of some of the content of the work parodied; summary of an address or article, with brief quotations, in a news report; reproduction by a library of a portion of a work to replace part of a damaged copy; reproduction by a teacher or student of a small part of a work to illustrate a lesson; reproduction of a work in legislative or judicial proceedings or reports; incidental and fortuitous reproduction, in a newsreel or broadcast, of a work located in the scene of an event being reported.” In Report of the Register of Copyrights on the General Revision of the U.S. Copyright Law (1961) .

          In ongoing litigation over quotation of excerpts, one reads:  "The court handed the technology giant a major victory over a series of authors who had sued over decade-old project, in which Google makes digital copies of books picked out by major libraries and allows the public to view snippets online. The three-judge panel affirmed a lower court's decision from 2013 that found Google's project falls within the limits of fair use because the work is meaningfully transformed and does not offer the public a meaningful substitute to buying the book." In "Google Books prevails in copyright lawsuit," by Mario Trujillo, The Hill, 16 October 2015.

          The notion of fair use will probably always be argued, for two reasons. The first and more persuasive is one of infringing on an individual's earning capacity, as the Google litigation argued. The second and least persuasive is one of simply shutting down another's conclusions, as is the root nature of tyranny, large and small alike. Legal tools in service to silence voices of criticism are the inheritors of simple, brute force in service to silence critics, which has been the history of mankind to date.

 

[ 2 ]    The clarity of speaking freely has been stated. One reads:   "Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Article 19 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

          The advice then -- to criticize as one might through the avenue and works of creativity -- is encouraged by the great in art as in law. It is the thin-skinned and the controlling who would oppose the "right to freedom of opinion and expression."