Emily shmemily,
Emily Dickinson,
Recluse and poetess,
Rendered her rhyme

Idiosyncrously,
Much of her poetry
Reading most cryptically
Much of the time.

O Autumn! thou hast splendidly array'd
     Nature, whose robes are treasure-rich with colour.
A patchy quilt of dying leaves decay'd,
     Thou blanketest the world with deathly dolour.
I hear a voice inside my head.  I list.
     "Come buy, come buy," I hear in my mind's ear.
The pulse doth quicken suddenly in my wrist:
     The netherworld hath never been so near.
I hearken to the rattling of the leaves
     That hang like vampyre bats from skeletal trees.
The songful birds that nested 'neath the eaves
     Have long since flown away with high degrees.
I'm cold and getting colder, and my breath
Is telling me I'm close to coming Death.

The changing seasons are not more changefull
Then my mistresse; neither more vengefull
Is the wooing autumn wind that seduceth
A singing mood afore it blasteth
With bitter colde, angry and disdainfull.
Her scorne is lyke a scorpion sting painfull
In my sad heart wich bleedeth for banefull
Her who presently nowe observeth
          The changing seasons.
Her cruell scorne capricious entiseth
My heart to dispaire; itt dispaireth
Dailye and dieth from disese most carefull.
Her scorne doth make my harte most woefull,
And so my smartyng heart despiseth
          The changing seasons.

There was an Old Man
Of Japan
     Whose limericks would never
     Ever
Scan.

Oh, weep for Adonais—he's undead!
    And hath been, lo! these interstitial years!
Yellow and black and pale and hectic red,
    His cockney mood consumptively careers.
Upon a bubbling Hippocrene he's drunk
    And dreaming, standing tiptoe on the brink
Of the wide world that sinks (Byron's a punk)
    As love and fame to nothingness do sink.
An anguished autumn wind doth howl a HOWL
    Of abject grief that sweeps the graveyard's stones.
The sickle moon observes the downy owl
    That eats a mouse from tail to skull and bones.
Zombie Allan Poe, who's green and obscene,
Is sobbing, "Happy Birthday Halloween!"

There once was a woman from Norway
Who'd hang by her toes in the doorway:
     She went to her dude
     And his friends in the ****
And requested a fjordian fjour-way.

There once was from Tilbury Town
A king in a Burger King crown:
     Insanely neurotic,
     Paranoid, and despotic,
His kingdom came crumbling down.

The Honey Bee

Little buzzing Honey Bee,
Honey sweetens me and thee.
Thou art busy all the Day;
Busy Bee, thy Wings are gay.

Flowers bloom and showers fall;
Spring is springing over All.
Thou shalt work till Daylight's end.
Golden Bee, thou art my Friend!


The Beekeeper

Little buzzing Honey Bee,
Thou dost make my Gold for me.
Labour, Bee, because thy toil
Buys my meat and drink and oil.

Thou art mine: what thou dost make,
Slave! to Market I shall take.
Mine the Bee and mine the Earth,
Mine by Right of Human birth.

Wintertime's hoarfrost, ice and rime
Have gone; departed hath the Gloom.
Make haste, ye maids, in Lilac Time:
Collect your Blossoms whilst they bloom.
What blooms today soon fades away:
Gather ye Lilacs while ye may,
Sith times, like Flying Saucers, zoom.

The cedars mourn,
And Uruk weeps.
Bereft Ninsun
In sadness sleeps.

Gilgamesh, god
And man and king,
Hath come to dust
Like everything,

Hath come to dust
Like everyone.
O Gilgamesh!
Where hast thou gone?

Shamash doth mourn,
And Anu weeps,
And Ki herself
Doth churn her deeps.

Fifteen men on the dead man's chest—
     Yo-**-**, and a bottle of ***!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest—
     Yo-**-**, and a bottle of ***!

Gold doubloons and pieces of eight—
     Yo-**-**, and a bottle of ***!
Pockets of coin is the sailor's fate—
     Yo-**-**, and a bottle of ***!

Gentlemen of fortune and fun—
     Yo-**-**, and a bottle of ***!
Have the most money under the sun—
     Yo-**-**, and a bottle of ***!

Got me a ******* every shore—
     Yo-**-**, and a bottle of ***!
Love 'em and leave 'em and leave 'em sore—
     Yo-**-**, and a bottle of ***!

Jolly Roger ***** in the breeze—
     Yo-**-**, and a bottle of ***!
Life is a sport on seven seas—
     Yo-**-**, and a bottle of ***!

Prove whether I do change, my dear,
Or if that I do still remain
Like as I went, or far or near,
And if ye find me not the same,
Declare 't is so that all may hear.

But if ye prove I change, my dear,
Not, but unchanged I do remain
Constant and true whithersoe'er
I travel to, then, dearest, deign
T'admit it only in mine ear.

She spent her time with Mary Jane
     And diamonds in the sky;
She skipped with joy down Penny Lane
     As Rita passed her by.

I am the walrus yesterday;
     Tomorrow never knows
Whate'er became of Lucy Gray
     And where her bonnet blows.