It’s the beginning of a new year, and Tony Abbott and his team are busy preparing to take over the world.
It’s time for an LP competition. Explain in haiku, limerick, sonnet or cinquain what’s going on in the LOOP* office. Winners get two free passes to “In The Loop”.
The rules are flexible, but making me LOL is a high priority. I’ll announce the winners next weekend. Movie opens 21 January and tickets can be used across most of Australia.
*LOOP = Leader of the Opposition Party.
Not sure if it had to be about “The Loop” but here is my entry:
There was a pollie called Tony,
Who said that Kevin was a phoney,
“Climate change was a lie,
Carbon’s good for the sky”,
What did we expect from Minchin’s crony?
Buff on the beaches,
Cossies displayed.
Bluffs from the benches,
Complete disarray.
Can’t we do confessional Sylvia Plath type agonies too?
If you think you can pull it off, Casey.
Forget the facts
It’s a big new tax!
WorkChoices dead
His face goes red.
There was a young biker called Tony
Whom Kevin approached on his pony
He waggled his whip and told him to “Git!
But Tony was fit and started to hit
That snooty and clever dick rider
Kev felt such pain as he reached for his Rein
brought down by a head punch decider
But the end of this story
Leaves Kev with the glory
When our Tony chose to pose without clothes
So the Pope sent Kevin to heaven!
Everyone knows how Disraeli the Tory
Stole from Gladstone the Glory
Abbott the Monk with his Oxon degree
Knowing this history chuckled with glee
I’ll do the same thing downunder said he
I’ll pinch Labor policy ‘n there won’t be a fee
But Kevin was watching and waiting you see
As Tony left planning for a dip in the sea
Our Liberal hero on his surfboard arose
He did look so Manly and mighty his pose
That’s when the Labour lout pinched all his clothes!
Abbott’s leadership
Signal to noise ratio -
Zero:Infinite
—-
There once was a Cardinal Pell,
Who counselled the Lib leader well;
‘Stop at nothing to win,
You might as well sin,
Cos the Party’s already in Hell.’
—-
In the world of The Loop,
There’s nothing but droop,
Since the exposure of Tones’ adorable love rug.
He shot off too early,
His prized weapon of curly,
Now there’s nothing to crabb Annabel’s attention.
People that warn of
Climate change are wrong if I
Don’t understand them.
Nicky and Tony were comrades, he wanted to give him everything,
power, position and most of all, the Canberra Lodge;
He saw a sign for an election race, one hundred seats it said,
He couldn’t get Tony on the phone, so to the Cardinal he said,
Tell Tony I love him. tell Tony I need him,
Tell Tony we just cannot wait, the poll may not be late,
Tell Tony I love him, Tell Tony I need him …
Bear in Speedos says
‘We Bullishly took wrong Turn’
Reload Action Dance
Leadership! Leadership!
Where are the whips?
Backbencher Liberals are licking their lips!
It’s gotta be Julie, the loyalty gal!
She’s done a wonderful job
Shucking off Brendan
And Tony and that snooty snob Mal!
But what about Joe?
Not sloppy Joe, no we can’t have him!
Let’s go for Julie,
She’s snake-eyed and slim!
And a woman is better to clean up this mess.
The man we’ll choose after is anyone’s guess.
Anna I know these don’t fit your rules, but dashing off this doggerel’s been a lot of fun. Are you limiting the number of entries?
Not an entry, but the capitalisation reminds me of the profoundly powerful and yet very un-Lisp like LOOP construct from Common Lisp. </nerd>
Shamelessly plagiarised from A Chorus Line
I’m so excited because I’m gonna go
to be Leader of the Opposition!
I mean, I was dying to be a serious player.
Anyway, it’s my first day as Leader -
and we’re in the Parliament and the PM,
Mr. Rudd… Oh, Mr. Rudd…
Anyway, he puts us up on the stage with
our policies around each other,
knives still in the backs of each other and he says:
“Okay… we’re going to do improvisations.
Now, you’re a fan of the free market. It’s a global financial crisis.
And you have to fix the environment as well…Okay…GO!”
Ev’ry day for a week we would try to
call the motion, call the motion
At the hill.
Ev’ry day for a week we would try to
Slow the process, slow the process,
Stop the bill.
And I dug right down to the bottom of my soul
To see what I had inside.
Yes, I dug right down to the bottom of my soul
And I tried, I tried.
And everybody’s goin’ “Let me make this clear …
I feel the jobs… I feel the economy… I feel for working families.”
And Mr. Rudd turns to me and he says,
“Okay, Tony. What did you feel?”
And I said… “Nothing,
I’m feeling nothing,”
And he says “Nothing
Could make voters deterred.”
They all felt something,
But I felt nothing
Except the feeling
That this bullshit was absurd!
Puff went the powder,
The cameras closed,
Tony’s nose twinkled,
Julia’s eyes glowed.
Patricia, go wild. I’m not enforcing any rules at all. You’ll only be judged on how you entertain or make me laugh.
A dearth of talent
An excess of rhetoric
Not electable
Patricia’s effort @7 gets my vote. Especially the obscure reference to a Victorian political cartoon.
Kevin shorter. Tony Taller.
Rudd a pedant. Abbott a brawler.
Kev: pallid, fleshy owl.
Tone: that bulge beneath his towel,
Like a budgie, only smaller.
Tony, Tony such a phony, the creepy Minchin is his crony,they claim climate change is baloney.
Here he comes
running up the beach
wearing nothing but budgies
about to make a speech
Hey Hey it’s the Monk with ears
No people skills to be found
A new Lib generation
The government he wants to put down…
Here he comes
with climate lessons to preach
gets the funniest looks from
the women he can’t reach
Hey hey it’s the Monk with ears
And Kevin hopes he just a clown
but with the voters Abbot’s tryin’ t’ look friendly
Wants to take over parliament town…
fade….. (please!)
Abbott was brave…
The hammer fell when
metrosexuality dared expose its self, lol!
Schoolgirl memories, DD! Amazing how whole pages of textbooks and long forgotten stanzas of Hiawatha surge up through years of accumulated trash and treasure. I think they should introduce poetry writing to dementia sufferers. It certainly livens up the synapses.
King Kevin’s in Heaven and Therese is there too
With a big cheesy smile and a wave of her hand
She’s making it Rein all over our land
Thus leaving fire rangers with nothing to do
So Tony goes biking then surfing instead
He’d rather fight fires It gives him more cred
Well thats what bossy Nick Minchin has said
But down at the beach Malingerer’s there
With fistfuls of dollars he’s happy to share
So no one wants Tony no matter how bare
Later sloppy old Joe comes ambling along
Tony says let’s do a show with a jig and a song
The crowd gets excited
Bronzed Tony’s delighted
He flexes his muscles and dances and shuffles
Get ‘em off, Joe, he whispers we’re winning
He doesn’t know real trouble’s beginning
Cos Joe’s a team player and does as he’s told
He gets off his gear and he dances real bold
Tony show pony he should’ve known
how ugly not snuggly
budgy smugglers can be
and should never be shown
even on leaders no matter how brown
The crowd goes so wild
with booing and hooting
and shoving and booting
Aah! Then there’s the shooting!
Bang!
Joe lies there cold
He’ll never grow old
He should’ve listened to John
He was right. They were wrong
The party’s over
Kevin’s in Heaven
There’s plenty of Rein
The farmers are voting for Labor again.
There’s a party that always holds grudges,
and a leader who oft smuggles budgies.
They let mad uncle tuck
hold the wheel of their truck,
So the rest of us end up as drudges.
There’s a party that’s full of deniers
With a leader who sometimes conspires.
No policies here,
Some backstabbing there.
No wonder they’re putting out fires.
There once was a hair rug importer,
Whose time at the helm could be shorter
Than Latham or Nelson
through Turnbull’s dissension,
or from any real liberal supporter.
Gah, fergot this one:
Late Autumn, Libs fall
No more votes, the leader gone
Six more left wing years
More attention please,
Though I’ve no substance at all,
Only fear and hate.
props and gongs to marks
for seasonal reference
needed in haiku!
lovely efforts all round but Katz has my vote by a clear margin at present. More please
Trua az, Give it to Katz!
RUDDY*
Ruddy, the winter here is cold
Splits, spits chips
the rosaries frozen
upon the screaming Aztec altars
you left behind
all bleeding
breeding
vermillion pavilions
from Adam’s side
Create
A thousand O mouths eating bleating
oh god Im freaking
And be created
One for Pell, the rest for me
Me, the gay churchy loser
You will see
Ruddy
I have to kill you
You have to die before you have time
Poll heavy, a bag full of some Anglican god.
Anglican red shoe your wife wears on Sundays
Achoo Achoo
Why doesn’t my wife wear them??
Oh yeah, right
I don’t like cameras on my Catholic Jesus hair
My stigmata church
No, don’t stare
I didn’t call them
I didn’t call them at all
Nevertheless, nevertheless
The steamed to me over Malcolm’s dead cold body
To my water rod, dazzling and grateful
To me, praying on my knees
Saying please baby please
Give me the sword my budgie needs
Oh the fuschia, I could draw no breath
Yeah yeah
the gay churchy loser that’s me
Oh Ruddy you will see
Ruddy Ruddy
You scare me, where it’s cold
Where moon shines your hair gold
You gleam in the light, you Tory’s fright
You gauze red, Communist fed
Oh Mandarin Man, Mandarin Man
Chinatown, Vagina Town
It’s all the same to you,
You slay them all don’t you?
You for whom the poll tolls
Oh you do you do
And the winds of Lake Burleigh Griffin they cut me chilly
But, now I’m being silly
Where was I? Oh yeah
Bit my brittle black heart in two
Those polls they do
Black amnesia is my brew
Do you like it how hot I stew?
Well screw you, screw you
But Ruddy
If I’ve killed one Malcolm, I’ll kill two
And Im coming get you
Ima fight till sunlight
Breaks open my skin, pure as a baby
tick tock on the clock
The Liberal party don’t stop
no
and don’t forget
Rosary chips in the snow
I will stake you with them,
now you know
Cause the villagers never liked you
You are just a colgate smile to them
They always knew it was you
Ring of confidence in the cobra light
Ruddy Ruddy, you bastard, Im through
*shamelessy pilfered from, like, everywhere in Ariel and Bad Feminist Poetry on Facebook and Lady Gaga and everywhere else.
We are the diggers of Abbott’s Army.
Isn’t Kevin completely smarmy?
He flogs AGW to the max
To saddle us with a great big tax.
What? Is it very hot? Nah, it’s just balmy!
Loop?-
I’m the fruitiest.
At my best
when attired
For the Pool
With Malcolm’s leadership sunk
Up bobbed Our Tone the mad monk
On strings from the winchin’
Of that wierdo Nick Minchin
It’s rabble now – hey, who’da thunk?
“a rabble”
Dammit.
Casey @31, best parody of Daddy, Daddy ever!
I believe someone required a villanelle. I’m no Plath so apologies in advance:
For Tony is wonderful, Kev is a con
That is the mantra, makes all LOOPers moist!
But beware the Barnaby my son!
Now deep within Canberra the climate is gone
Malcontented is Turnbull, petard at the mast
For Tony is wonderful, Kev is a con
Nick musters quarks, who stumbled upon
The Great Big Tax upon all hope is lost
But beware the Barnaby, my son!
Julie will pray that her abbott has won
That policy lies ahead in the mist
For Tony is wonderful, Kev is a con
And Nick has a brainwave: how to ward off the John
By making less sense than a chapter of Joyce.
But beware the Barnaby, my son!
Now Julie and Nick have their parts in Tone’s song:
Can he rule all from his mystical list?
For Tony is wonderful, Kev is a con
But beware the Barnaby, my son!
Thanks, but Ewe2, there is another Plathite here that glows whitely. The Pavlova. She is a giant of the Plath verse. I’ve been waiting for her, but alas the Cat no showed. SO I tried my own. Perhaps she will yet come and leave me in the dust? I much admire her confessionals.
Run, Abbott, Run!
When an Abbott sheds his habit
To run for the election
Though he gain himself two Bishops,
It may end in disaffection:
For the voters are quite choosy
And the News Poll is a floozy
Malcolm Muggeridge is boozy
And his hopes are getting slim.
Though the first prize is receding,
Still the Abbott tries to grab it
Barnaby does a blunder
And the Abbott cries ‘Dagnabbit!’
For the voters are quite choosy
And the News Poll is a floozy
Malcolm Muggeridge is boozy
And things are looking grim.
Luv it ewe2, Joyce the jabberwocky. Emphasis on jabber.
(With apologies to Gilbert & Sullivan. Or perhaps it is they who should apologise to us.)
I am the very model of postmodern Liberal leadership,
I’ll say and do most anything as long as there’s a vote in it,
I read the pundits reverentally,
I dote on talkback royalty,
And echo their opinions every given opportunity.
(musical flourish)
I have something to say about the smallest lapse in governance,
I strut and fret and fume against my legislative impotence,
I am a true believer,
and my views are plain for all to see,
And yet I am bereft of e’en the smallest scrap of policy.
(Chorus:…And yet he is bereft of e’en the smallest scrap of policy…etc. & crescendo x 3)
I have a few suggestions but there’s nothing that should worry us,
Only the poor and female need consider the back of the bus,
I know what’s right, I know what’s best,
I sign the Cross and pound my chest,
I’ll legislate for Jesus and then God can sort out all the rest.
(musical flourish)
I’m well versed in all subjects be they idee- or thee-logical,
Consult Adviser Pell in matters escha-atta-logical,
My Cabinet rides out, Shadow horseman,
Ready for whatever’s next,
With Joyce, Hockey, Bishop & Ruddock leading the Apocalypse.
(Chorus…With Joyce, Hockey, Bishop & Ruddock leading the Apocalypse…etc. & crescendo x 3)
(Ritando)
So in the end, we all agree, I’m what’s best for Australia,
Who needs good sense when we all know that faith will never fail ya…
(Accelerando)
That’s why it’s such a pity,
That my time will only be a blip,
Because I am the model of postmodern Liberal leadership!
Okay, that rocks. I like Merc’s the best.
People
of Australia
People who are righteous
Shore up your barricades, confront
The left
They en-
gage in shameless
Sexual relations
Without holy marriage, it is totally
Bereft
Farmers
Barnaby Joyce
Will stand by you; they think
I’m a budgie smuggler from the
city
If pro-
fits are private
and losses are public
that’s good policy we can all
agree
Minchin
Ain’t flinchin’, when
Climate is mentioned, the
World is cooling, and no-one’s fool-
in’ him
Honest
Joe, the WorkChoice
Plumber, call his number
’cause the Treasury Gretch has sprung
A leak
I look
o’er the Chamber
Julia, Julia.
Is that red hair dye, or is it
Danger
Kevvie,
I’m the hard man,
of the right. I am your
opposition, your nemesis.
Bite me.
I’m the
Last man standing,
the Stephen Bradbury
of Australian politics –
I win.
“Australiana” Politics
Sittin’ at home last Sunday mornin’ me mate Tony A said he was havin’ a few people around for a barbie, said he might smuggle a budgie or two
I said, “Sounds great, will Barnaby there?”
He said “Yeah and Micheal’s Keenan all”.
So I said to the wife “Do you wanna Goanna?”. “I’ll be good, Truss me”
She said, “Not if George goes. The Last time we went, he took his tennis ball and tried to Brandis all”.
I said, “maybe we could play poker”. “I know Jason Wood, and Erica too”
She said “Nah, not poker. Eric Abetz too high”.
I said, “Well you’d better make up your mind. I wanna get there and watch Christopher Pyne over Tony’s leadership win”
She said “Alright, I’ll come if Malcolm’s too”
We got to the barbie about two and walked straight out the kitchen to put some booze in the fridge. And you wouldn’t believe it, there’s Tony sitting in the corner choosing his Lotto numbers.
He said “Let’s choose a number we can both agree on”
I said “8″, “RU482?”
He said “Nah, let’s play chess instead”
I said “OK, but where’s the Bishop”
“She’s in the pool with Peter Dutton all”
Next thing Bella turns up lookin’ like crap. I said “Don’t look in the Mirabella what ever ya do”
Everyone was havin’ a good time, we even saw Nick Minchin’ around the boys!
At the end of the day John turns up. I said “John, Howard ya like a cold beer, mate?”
But John said he’s off the grog.
I said “Has it Bennelong time, John?”
Before he could answer, Tony pulled me aside to show me the latest polling figures.
“Well” he said. “Shit happens”
And so it does!!
Dunno if itn was poetry, but that was freakin’ poetry, Mal.
And er… yeah.
Mercurius, I dips me lid.
Bravo, Mercurious, bravo.
Sorry, Casey, I have no poetry (and we don’t need any more Plath after that magnificent effort) but by way of an offering of sorts I’m going to do something I seldom do and link to my own blog, specifically this Ascension of Abbott According to LOLcats post of December 10.
PC,
love it!
‘Twas on the good ship Menzies*
They rushed to launch the dinghies.
All adrift, Rudd’less, each one alone
Too late e’en now to lower the Tone.
[*Mingies, trad. pron.
There’s something disturbing
about a bloke who,
when handed the chalice,
drinks wildly from it.
When in disgrace with polls and Party eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
Troubling Machu Pichu with my bootless cries,
And Lucy cannot comfort me, sweet mate.
Wishing me like to Tony, rich in hope,
Could surf like him, like him with pecs possess’d,
Resenting Howard’s part, and Minchin’s role,
When that great wealth I have now helps me least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despairing,
Julie, I think on thee and Joe’s great weight,
With Coalition friends like Barnaby rejoicing,
Bronwyn, Wilson, all confident of late,
Their joint capacity such comfort brings
I smile to know they’ll make a mess of things.
Apologies to W.S.
Patricia, very finely poised!
Paradise Lost, Or, How Tony saved us from the Devil*
Book One
Of Mans First Disobedience, and the false
Fruit of Fresh Ideas, whose immoral taste
Brought Evil into the World, and all our woe,
With a false Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful Seat…
Books 2 through 11
[yada yada yada]
{Tony promises to redeem mankind from the Devil Rudd, with His Father’s blessing]
[yada yada yada]
Book 12
The the gas beshrouded planet blaz’d
Fierce as a Comet; which with torrid heat,
And vapour as the Libyan Air adust,
Began to parch that temperate Clime; whereat
In either hand the the consoling Abbott caught
Our lingring Parents, and to th’ Eastern Gate
Led them direct, and down the Cliff as fast
To the submerged Plaine; then disappeer’d.
They looking back, all th’ Eastern side beheld
Of Paradise, so late their Fool’s Paradise,
Rudd, his once smug visage now creased with grief,
“Why didst thou not make my lies your truth?”
Some natural tears they drop’d, but wip’d them soon;
The World was all before them, where to choose
Thir place of rest, and the Liberal Right thir guide:
They hand in hand with wandring steps and slow,
From Eden took thir battling way.
The End.
________________
*Don’t mind the quality. Feel the width.
Wow, Katz. I thought of giving Milton a go, but was too intimidated to try it!
Thanks Merc. I love your work with G and S.
Winners announced Sunday… last chance!
Can’t resist, Anna!
Ingenious and ingenuous
With policies most tenuous,
Abbott may be strenuous
But is he really strong?
Rudd has heard the gong.
Out he comes, gloves on,
Verbiage flies to left and right
What a lovely bloody fight!
Both men give it all their might
And, as we say, their main.
Tony, was it really worth the pain?
Since Kevin’s won and long will rein?
Thanks to FDB
@patriciawa #51 Thanks for the sonnet! I was worried noone would do one.
Yes, the sonnet had…class, he said elitistly.
Ewe 2, I was hoping more people would try the sonnet. It was your villanelle which inspired me to further effort and bit more discipline. I particularly loved your refrain:
“Beware the Barnaby, my son!”
Dunno what you’re thanking me for PatWA, but… no sweat!
@FDB I think PatriciaWA was referring to your #45.
@PatriciaWA Sonnets are intimidating, and should not be, glad to have inspired one! It’s rather hard for my unruly sense of humour to avoid seeing Barnaby as a kind of blundering dinosaur
There once was a cove with a love rug
Who just wouldn’t shake the carbon bug
He wuthered and swung
As the weather vane sung
To the tune of the media’s love tug
Tony Abbot walks into the party room to the head of the table.
“I’ll call this meeting to order. Now my instructions last time we met, was to give you an exercise that would bring us closer together as a team. Now it wasn’t hard, it wasn’t onerous. It’s in the great Australian tradition, if we go back into our history, the bush ballad, a yarn by campfire. The art of the working man. (Pauses) And woman … Julie, Sophie.
Each of you was to write a poem. It didn’t have to be long. Each poem would have something of yourself in it. It didn’t have to be an epic. But I wonder – if you can’t move me, how are you going to move the Australian people?”
“Now I’m pretty disappointed at some of the efforts. Warren Truss – you were pretty unoriginal:
In Canberra did Burley Griffin
A stately parliament decree:
Where ALP, the profane party, ran
Left through corridors measureless to man
Panting lapdogs of Kevvie.
Wilson, we knew exactly what you were gonna write and you didn’t disappoint:
It was the man called Ironbar who struck the Canberra town,
He wandered by the Treasury, he wandered up and down.
He proclaimed here, he declaimed there, till all were like to drop,
But he said, you just listen here, I’ll finish when I stop.
You over-educated mugs with soft heads and softer hands
Orta sit down, shut up and hear some wisdom from the land
Malcolm, of course, wrote an epic – Malcolm I’m not going to read it all:
Famed was this Maelculm: far flew the boast of him,
Of merchant banks, in the finance lands.
So becomes it a youth reporter
With his banking friends, by fee and gift,
That to aid him, when a republican,
To the ballot, should referenda loom,
Raised by liegemen: or by the Scald?
A president of every clan.
But Gollum at the fated moment,
Split the allies and drew the day.
Tim Minchin, Lawrence of the Senate:
A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
And lifted his head, flicked his tongue to taste the air,
And said the climate has changed, it is warm, it is dry
That deep, dark well of science, of knowledge. I have shone a light in it.
The climate has changed, the air is stiff, it grows hard, there will be no more to drink.
I threw a spill at it, I threw my lot
What about the jobs, the economy,
I ranted, I railed. You come here with your taxes, your poison.
The snake raised its head, looked deep into my soul, and saw the truth.
It slunk away back into the shadows, to soothe its wounds,
To plot, to plan.
But immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed neo-classical education.
Now I don’t dare turn my back on shadows,
But they surround me, I have to face all sides, the dangers.
To be safe, I will obliterate them.
And so, I missed my chance to reconcile
With life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.
Joe Hockey. Joe, we know what bedtime book you had read to you:
Halfway down the interest rates
Is a rate
Where I sit.
There isn’t any
Other rate
Quite like
It.
It isn’t at at the bottom,
It isn’t at the top;
So this is the rate
Where
I always
Stop.
Halfway up the rates
Isn’t up
And it isn’t down.
It isn’t in the Treasury,
It isn’t in town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head.
It isn’t really
Anywhere!
It’s somewhere else
Instead!
Julie Bishop. Well you certainly wouldn’t have approved of the poet, but you’ve set the poem right:
Said the prime minister skeleton
Vote for my bill
Said the opposition skeleton
You’re a union shill
Said the Julia Gillard skeleton
Make work fair
Said the Eric Abetz skeleton
You wouldn’t dare
Said the Bob Brown skeleton
Save all the trees
Said the Greg Hunt skeleton
More for Gunns please
Said the Penny Wong skeleton
5% for ETS
Said the Nick Minchin skeleton
0% or less
Said the Jennie Macklin skeleton
Federal intervention
Said the Kevin Andrews skeleton
Is abuse prevention
Said the Stephen Conroy skeleton
Family filter please
Said the Tony Smith skeleton
The internet might sieze
Said the Kim Carr skeleton
Science is for industry
Said the Sophia Mirabella skeleton
Science is ideology
And so it goes – you get the picture. So well done Julie. The others of you – we really have to lift standards. Bill Heffernan – I can understand the sentiment behind F*** the Hippies, but I had no idea you were into rap-metal. Barnaby Joyce – have you considered anything beyond Bush Ballads? He’s not president any longer, you know. If we want to win the election, we really have to get our act together. Here’s an online guide for how to turn opposition poetry into governing poetry. Larvatus prodeo – that’s right – this website here:
The Hound of Kevin
I chased him, down the face of Bondi waves;
I chased him semi-nakedly; in my Manly form,
I chased him, as one must who craves
Kirribilli; snuggest port in any storm.
I challenged him, and under running laughter.
Up media-friendly slopes I sped;
I stabbed and stabbed. He bled.
I showed him as the pallid wus he was,
My splayed strong Feet I followed, followed after.
And with perfervid chase,
At poll-driven pace,
Relentless speed, cautious religiosity,
They beat — but above that din
A sentence came in unaccented Mandarin –
“I’ll still beat you. Just you wait and see.”
Clever Katz. Well done.
Replace “Greg Hunt” with “Marn Ferson” and you’ve got it.
Ditto, Casey! Is this comp still open? I’m a bit wary about trying to compete with Katz’s latest. I’ve loved having Anna’s permission to go wild about form, but then been really impressed by entries like this which are both disciplined and funny.
As well I’m worried I might start talking in rhyming couplets instead of just thinking them which could be seen as incipient dementia! I woke up this morning thinking I’d shifted from senescent obsolescence back to lively adolescence! If only!
FDB – Earlier I was just acknowledging your “ingenious” intervention on another thread. I rushed back here to use it in case you’d beat me to it with one of your pithy efforts. I wish I could say as much in a few words. Which reminds me – my favorite still is that of Fascinated @ 2! What is it about brevity and wit?
An Aussie Lad
From Mal to Tony the pref’rence turns,
The Libs have made it plain,
Afar and wide their hope returns,
Ambitions burn again.
Look left, look right, the future’s bright,
As if no poll there’d been.
Tony will win the day and plight
His troth to save the Queen.
Now, when the flames of climate change
Burn Australian bush and sod,
Lads, remember Cath’lic friends of his
Will intercede with God.
Good girls who know their place a’right,
Whose mothers bred them brave
Enough to serve yet not to fight
High office they’ll not crave.
Headlines in Asia, web comments show,
Everywhere tis said,
Tone’s Clancy of the Overflow:
Nationals’ pride no longer dead.
Barnaby takes the fight to country towns
Afar and wide he tours,
And fires the beacons up and down
Denouncing Labor’s evil laws.
“God save the Queen” the Liberals sing,
From East to West ’tis heard;
Maybe William should be king.
That’s also on the cards.
Policies can change, fear not!
We’ll be again the men we’ve been.
The party now in Tony’s got
A leader like you’ve never seen!
Apologies to A.E.H
Ok. Trying not to giggle. First, apologies to Tolkien:
One Rudd to rule them all
One Rudd to find them
One Rudd to bring them all
And in the darkness bind them
In the land of Barnyard where the Abbotts lie
Now I must apologize to Webber & Rice. The scene is the Liberal party room:
ABBOTT
What then to do about Kevin of Labor?
Miracle wonderman, hero of fools.
BARNABY
No riots, no army, no fighting, no slogans.
MINCHIN
One thing I’ll say for him — Kevin is cool.
ABBOTT
We dare not leave him to his own devices.
His left-leaning fans will get out of control.
HOCKEY
But how can we stop him?
His glamour increases
By leaps every moment; he’s top of the poll.
MINCHIN
I see bad things arising.
Even Bill Tuckey will think we are fools
I see electoral damnation,
Our elimination because we’re all tools
Irrelevant yapping because we’re all tools
ALL (inside)
Because, because, because we’re all tools
MINCHIN
Our elimination because we’re all tools.
ALL (inside)
Because, because, because we’re all, ’cause we’re all, ’cause we’re all tools.
BARNABY
What then to do about this Kevin-mania?
ABBOTT
How do we deal with a Mandarin king?
HOCKEY
Where do we start with a man who is bigger
Than Kim was when Kim did his dog’s breakfast thing?
MINCHIN
Fools, you have no perception!
The speeches we’re making are weird and obtuse
We’ll just bleat the same rubbish,
And like Kim before him, this Kevin must lose
For the sake of our pensions, this Kevin must lose
ALL (inside)
Must lose, must lose, this Kevin must lose.
MINCHIN
So like Kim before him, this Kevin must lose.
ALL (inside)
Must lose, must lose, this Kevin must, Kevin must, Kevin must lose!
Take a bow Ewe2, take a bow.
Patricia well done, well done again.
I would not like to judge this lot.
No I would not.
Casey @71, you’re starting to channel Dr Seuss there.
(hint, hint…)
Spot on, Mercurius! Come on, Casey! If Ewe2 can do it, Ucan2!
Musicals and the Liberal party. They just fit, don’t they? Mel Brooks knows all about the megalomania (thanks, Mel!):
CHORUS:
Australia was doing fine
But that would spoil our story
Needed a new patsy to restore
Our former glory
Where, oh, where was he?
Where could that man be?
We looked around and then we found
The man for you and me
LEAD TENOR STORMTROOPER:
And now it’s…
Springtime for Tony and Barnaby
Liberals are happy and gay!
We’re marching to a faster pace
Look out, here comes the master race!
Springtime for Tony and Hockey
New Right makes you right once more!
Springtime for Tony and Barnaby
Watch out, Canberra
We’re going on tour!
Springtime for Tony and Julie
Winter for Gillard and Rudd
Springtime for Minchin and Barnaby
Come on, Liberals
Show us more of your crud!
STORMTROOPER Nick:
I made sure they voted quick und that is why they call me Nick.
STORMTROOPER JULIE:
Don’t be stupid, be a smarty, come and join the Liberal party!
CHORUS:
The leader of the opposition is coming, the the leader of the opposition is coming, the the leader of the opposition is coming!
Heil Tony!
Heil Tony!
Heil Tony!
Springtime for Tony and Barnaby
Heil Tony!
TONY:
Heil myself
Heil to me
I’m the lout
Who’s out to repeat history
Heil myself
Raise your glass
There’s no greater
Micturator from the past!
Everything I do, I do for me!
CHORUS:
Yes, you do!
TONY:
If you’re looking for a LOOP, here’s Number Three!
Heil myself
Raise your beer
CHORUS:
Jawohl!
TONY:
Ev’ry hotsy-totsy Liberal stand and cheer
ALL:
Hooray!
Ev’ry hotsy-totsy Liberal…
Heil myself!
Ev’ry hotsy-totsy Liberal…
Heil myself!
Ev’ry hotsy-totsy Liberal…
…stand and cheer!
THE HEIL-LOs:
The Fuhrer is causing a furor!
He’s got those leftys on the trot
He’s pretty sure of what he’s not!
The Fuhrer is causing a furor
They can’t say “no” to his demands
They’re freaking out in Labor lands
He’s got the over-sixties in his hands
The Fuhrer is causing a furor!
TONY:
I was just a budgie smuggler
No one more obscurer
Got a phone call from the Minchin
Told me I was Fuhrer
Liberals were blue
What, oh, what to do?
I made a speech
And had a swim
Now Bondi’s smiling through!
But it wasn’t always so easy…
It was 2009. Malcolm was working the Big Room and I…
I was playing the lounge. And then I got my big break.
Somebody started a spill motion. And, would you believe it?
They made me LOOP. LOOP!
It ain’t no myst’ry
If it’s politics or hist’ry
The thing you gotta know is
Ev’rything is show biz
Heil myself
Watch my show
I’m the stuff of talkback nightmares
Dontcha know
We are crossing gene pools
The old world order is back
Make a great big smile
Ev’ryone sieg heil to me
Wonderful me!
And now it’s…
CHORUS:
Springtime for Tony and Barnaby
Goose-step’s the new step today
TONY:
Springtime!
Goose-steps!
CHORUS:
Fools raining from the skies again
Waffling is on the rise again
TONY & CHORUS:
Springtime for Tony and Barnaby
Failboats are sailing today
Springtime for Tony and Barnaby
Means that…
Soon we’ll be voted…
We’ve got to be voted…
You know we’ll be voted….
You bet we’ll be voted…
You know we’ll be voted away!
After many tears, the winners are:
Fascinated
The Amazing Kim
Katz
Casey
ewe2
Mercurius
Mal J
Ambigulous
Patricia WA
This was very difficult. Next time if you could all arrange to be really bad, it would be much appreciated.
I’ll send the winners an email to get your postal addresses.
Thanks for running the comp, Anna.
Ooowh – do we really have to stop now? Just one more round, please! Particularly today with Newspoll out! I have some “Advice for Kevin”
Gather ye voters while ye may
Cos Tony’s out there trying
And those good polls you see today
Tomorrow will be diving
Thanks Anna, and to everyone else for all the fun.
I thought it was just getting going myself! Perhaps a Poets Corner for Incorrigible Political Doggerel might be in order? Enjoyed myself immensely and much heartened that such quality is on display. Thanks to Anna for the encouragement!
Another round please!
To the tune of Chelsea Hotel#2
I remember Tone well in the Last Chance Hotel,
He was talking so dumb and so wild,
Giving me the shits
In between laughing fits,
As Labor grew ever more mild.
Those were seasons, that was Australia,
We were waiting for reasons to vote.
That was called politics to the gallery clones,
Probably still is to those of ‘em left.
But Tone got away we were glad to say,
But we never once heard him say, ‘I’m sorry, I’m really sorry’,
Or anything close to the truth.
Tony Tony
Give me a policy do
I’m half sober from an alcopop or two
it won’t be a fancy ‘lection
i can’t keep down me Breaky
when you emerge
i get the urge
to chunder over you
I’d like to thank Anna, and God, and the Academy. But most of all, I’d like to thank the man who made this possible. Tony, you inspire us all.
*raises tickets in air*
This one’s for you, baby!
Oh gosh..blushes…it was fun…thank you Anna et al.
ewe2 …doggerel …verbal cartoons…absolutely happy to get it set up.
Who designed your red carpet outfit Mercurius?
Yes, when I think of my fellow luminaries, I don’t belong here. Seriously. But anyway, I’d like to thank my good friends Ted Hughes, Slvia Plath, Lady Gaga, and S. Eaton on Bad Feminist Poetry on Facebook whose lines I completely ripped off. Please forgive me.
I think that we should all now write poetry about Anna. Thank you again.
And i’d like to thank Edward Lear for popularising the limerick, and also for writing very unfunny exemplars that can easily be surpassed by rank amateurs, including your interlocutor. An example from Wiki:
There was an Old Man of Aôsta,
Who possessed a large Cow, but he lost her;
But they said, ‘Don’t you see,
she has rushed up a tree?
You invidious Old Man of Aôsta!’
I ask you, in what universe is that funny?
Katz — well, mebbe.
But OTOH Lear also wrote the greatest bit of dadaism ever enshrined in a limerick, viz.:
There was an old man with a beard,
Who exclaimed, ‘It is just as I feared!’
etc etc
Or for that matter, why is the other old man “invidious”? Perhaps we must ask Harry Stephen Keeler to solve the mystery for us. Or we could just admit that a lot of anglophone comedy is built on sheer crankery.
If you don’t think Edward Lear is funny, then you probably just haven’t read enough Ernie Bushmiller yet. You have to keep reading Lear, or Nancy, or Blondie, until you pretty much faint, before you start to get it. Sort of like the whirling dervishes. Or Iron Butterfly.
@dylwah That’s wonderful, I inhaled my coffee. Particularly the non-rhyme of Breaky.
I’d like to thank Casey for also making me inhale coffee when I saw the germinal text of Bad Feminist Poetry. Remember, average artists copy, great artists steal!
All my fellow poets for their numerous and witty entries! Perhaps Wendy Cope is not as singular as I supposed. And there’s more than the ghost of Larkin larking about! There’s a thought, how would Eliot, Auden or Emily Dickinson tackle such a subject?
Here’s William Carlos Williams’ 2 cents:
so much depends on
a red budgie smuggler
glazed with seawater
beside the white surfboards
edit: that first line should read “so much depends upon” not “on”. gah.
Yes Katz, the early limericks that have been discovered show a quaint rustic character, and whatever their purpose was, it seems that humour was not a high priority.
After extensive research into the collective unconscious, I believe I have uncovered the prototype, The One That Started It All. Behold, the first limerick:
There once was an old man from Limerick,
Who wrote poems by the light of a candle-wick,
They all scanned the same,
And the humour was lame,
There once was an old man from Limerick.
@ 83,
Casey, I’m really happy for you, and imma let you finish, but Patricia’s sonnet was the BEST iambic pentameter in the history of verse!
Ewe2 – cheers
This was in a book i read once, it is the only limerick that i can ever remember.
The limerick is an art form complex
Whose contents run chiefly to sex
It’s famous for virgins
And masculine urgins
And vulgar erotic effects
Then the ur-limerickist wrote this one:
There was an old man from Limerick
Who had just written the first limerick.
“Limerick is in Ireland
Which is also an island,”
Quoth the Irish islander of Limerick.
Yet the form thrived. Remarkable.
Thanks, Mercurius, you do wonders for a girl’s morale! But the credit for the iambic pentameter really belongs to Mr Shakespeare whose sonnet I so heartlessly parodied. Sonnet 29 has brought comfort to me at critical times in my long life so it sprang easily to mind when I was looking for a model. I felt almost guilty as I removed those faultless and lofty phrases and replaced them with my own shallow digs at Tony & Co.
Though I must say I did take some delight in “Joe’s great weight” and “Barnaby rejoicing” and went off for my walk feeling very pleased with myself where their “joint capacity” jumped out of the sea and into my head. You’ll know the feeling. I had no qualms later about using and abusing that first verse of the Shropshire Lad. What a piece of jingoistic propaganda that was.
I wish I had your obvious breadth of knowledge of poetry, Ewe2. I am long past being aroused by a “red budgie smuggler glazed with seawater” but I am impressed by your imagination! I was also impressed by Dylwah’s favorite limerick. I can see myself learning that one off by heart too.
This has been a delightful ten days for me, not least because of what seemed to be a meeting of minds in competition. Perhaps next time Anna will choose a topic for comment on only in limerick form. Brevity, wit and political opinion condensed?
So glad you(ewe) didn’t plump for the one about plums. *squick*
“So glad you(ewe) didn’t plump for the one about plums.”
If somebody does a funny Abbott-parody version of WCW’s great “The Locust-Tree in Flower,” I’ll donate $100 to MSF for Haiti. (making my own donations for Haiti regardless, but I’ll do the extra if youse can pull it orf.)
FINGERS IN HIS EARS
Beholden
to
Greens
unlucky
Howard
latte
elite
branch
stacking
white
sweet
backlash
dogwhistle
KATZ CATS KATZ
Splish splash. That was pretty good!
Hunnerd bucks to MSF on its way.
Hotcha!
p.s. ain’t that poem great?
100 from me as well. MSF rocks.
Never
not
green
but
holds
olive
branch
comes
right
rich
Mal
again
Doesn’t qualify, I know, but green is a better fit for Mal than Tony. I’ll top up my own MSF donation for the pleasure and the education!
What have I created?!
@83 Mercurius, you must be psychic, I was going to write that!
@92 Thanks Patricia, I feel the subject is oddly inspiring! And if you can’t parody The Bard, then noone’s fair game.
@95 Katz, excellent signature!
@93 What’s wrong with plums? What’s wrong with LOOPs?
this is just to say
I have taken
the LOOP
that was in
the esky
and which
you were probably
saving
for Malcolm
Forgive me
it was too alluring
so sweet
and so absolute
j_p_z – thanks for the intro to WCW’s poem. The more I tried to play with his form for parody the more the substance got to me. I haven’t read poetry for many decades. Suddenly it looks like a very inviting.
Perhaps this stiff old broken branch can grow white sweet May again.