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'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
did gyre and gimble in the wabe.
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
the frumious Bandersnatch!"
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the maxome foe he sought-
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood a while in thought.
As in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came.
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack.
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
"Has thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Calloh! Callay!
He chortled in his joy.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
    And the mome raths outgrabe.
"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
    The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
    The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
    Long time the manxome foe he sought--
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
    And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
    The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
    And burbled as it came!

One two! One two! And through and through
    The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
    He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
    Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
    He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
    Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
    And the mome raths outgrabe.
Lewis Carroll (Charles L. Dodgson)
slythersnake18 Jan 2015
'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
  The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
  The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:
  Long time the manxome foe he sought --
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
  And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
  The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
  And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
  The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
  He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?
  Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!'
  He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
  Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
  And the mome raths outgrabe.
Fire Fox May 2015
'Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand
Long time the manxome foe he sought-
So rested he by Tumtum tree
And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwocky, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with it's head
He went galumphing back.

"And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves
And the mome raths outgrabe.

-Lewis Carroll
Mark Toney Oct 2019
Why do mechanics need manuals when they’ve fixed it before?
Answer my question or I’ll walk out the door!
Didn’t they attend trade schools or get O.J.T.?
Why need repair manuals?  That what gets me.
I just want a mechanic who won’t refer to a book.
Just fix my car already, don’t give it a second look!

Why do pilots run checklists and reference their charts?
Just push the dang button and hope the plane starts!
Didn’t they go to flight school and pass all the tests?
Pilots fly most days, so who needs all that mess?
I want a pilot who knows without referencing a chart.
Just get on with the flying and prove that you’re smart!

What about the doctors who are practicing still?
Why can’t they get it right?  And that includes the bill!
They’re always researching new studies in journals
When time’s better spent attending patients’ internals.
I just want a Marcus Welby, Ben Casey or Kildare
Instead of keeping up to date, I just want them to care.

Why do lawyers review case studies and legal decisions?
Such antics in my book leave them open to derision.
All that studying in law school should have been enough.
After passing the bar they should already know their stuff.
I just want an attorney who’s a know-it-all ace,
Not a book worm mouthpiece to plead my case.

Finally, the poets, being wordsmiths their art
You won’t see them referencing a checklist or chart
But look, in their hands, just what can that be?
A dictionary?  Thesaurus?  Are those what I see?
A real poet never needs help reading Shakespeare or Keats
Using Webster and Roget would make all of us cheats!
If a poet is real, the words should just flow
I think that all poets should automatically know
The right words to use, and literary crutches forgo
How dare they try better vocabulary to hone
They should come up with good things to say on their own.
I’m looking for poets who’ll just know what to say
Like Lewis Carroll’s poems in his heyday:
“Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogroves, And the mome raths outgrabe.”

Don’t bother looking up his words, for that would be a dumb thing.
Using a dictionary or thesaurus, you might actually learn something!
1/1/2018 - Poetry form: Rhyme - This poem is an exaggeration full of satire and hyperbole. I wrote it in response to what I read someone say concerning the use of a dictionary and thesaurus by poets. They said that real poets don't need them. I was so astonished and shocked by that statement (since I use the dictionary and thesaurus all the time) that I decided to write a poem extending that idea to other professions, such as mechanics, pilots, doctors, lawyers and poets. Of course, all of these professions need to continue to keep up to date, be accurate and precise. I conclude the poem with the excerpt from Lewis Carroll’s nonsensical poem “Jabberwocky” to drive home the point. My last two lines say it all.
Leone Lamp Jun 2021
'Twas brillig, when the wee sleek beasty
Did gyre and gimble in my fields
And ach! I feel but naught, but sadness
Plowing his home and stealing his meals
Just an idea, in a verse. I think I want to revisit this and somehow mash up all of Jabberwocky and To A Mouse, two of my favorite poems.

~06/03/2021
Nike Kaffezakis Dec 2014
Twas brillig and the slithy toves
Did gyle and gimble in the wabe.
“Beware the jabberwock my son
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch…”

The twin scourges of solitude

Death comes upon closed hearts,
Nay… Cold Hearts would pray for death
Close cousin to the cold heart, the busy mind.
One rises with the other, in fact;
Both encage…
Both disconnect…
Both starve … of joy
Both take… the person…’s soul.

I give up, I say
Love is not for me
I fall to me knee
Bow head in defeat


Why do I show my neck to my foe?
There is a better way, I do not know.*

I don’t know
I simply do not know
Everyone looks toward me
Expecting my advice
It’s not here

I do not know the reason
For the changing of the tide
Nor changing of the season
Nor the…


The answers
Are as hidden from me
As they are for the rest of you
So do not look at me
Turn and go
Donall Dempsey Sep 2019
IT WAS A FRABJOUS DAY

The Jabberwock was
having its usual

cup of coffee
its tenth of the day.

Black.
Always black.

One could see coffee grains
caught in its teeth

Always the same
big grin.

We joked
(behind its back of course)

that Jabberwock
meant coffee ******.

Not because we were fearful
but because he was such

a sensitive soul
and we didn't want to

cause offense
where no offense was meant.

It could get a bit
uffish.

An unlit cigarette clung
to its slobbery lips.

It didn't smoke but
wanted to appear to do so.

The mome raths were outgrabbing
they never seemed to stop.

The Cheshire Cat
(not all there)

smiled its smile
we called it Mona Lisa.

We were all just
hanging about

as you do when
your author ponders.

Nobody dared to
approach him.

He was a God
to us.

Me and the rest of the Toves
knew our place

and played cards
with the Borogoves.

The Borogoves
were cheaters.

The Jubjub birds were
bored out of their tiny skulls

perching in the branches of
the TumTum trees in Tulgey Wood.

The Bandersnatch was having
a frumious forty winks.

We were glad to be
just alive if only

in words -
words was our world.

No use getting all
mimsy about it.

We weren't as slithy
as we were made out to be.

We practiced our
gyre and gimble.

We were merely
the creatures of his brain.

We wouldn't dare disturb
the Author for fear

of being
scratched out.

Nobody 'cept the manxome
Jabberwock that is.  

"But what's my motivation  Mr. Carroll?"
He'd forever burble.

"Could I not take just a small bite perhaps
out of the little beamish chap ?" he'd whiffle.

Mr. Carroll( nobody dared
to call him Lewis)

just smiled and
Jack Jabberwock would galumphed back.

"Ok! Places everyone - 'tis brillig!
and the story limped on again.

It was a frabjous day
a really frabjous day.

All that could be heard was
the dripping of a tap

and the constant
scratching of the pen

creating forever
creating

the next sentence.
Andy Chunn Sep 2021
He said that it was brillig, but what did that word mean
And slithy is a word that I had never seen
If you gyre and gimble, what do you really do
I guess when in the wabe, you seek the meaning too.

Lewis was a master of words that were not real
He made you fear the Jubjub, and he made you feel
Like your very being, is a door without a latch
It takes bravery to shun the frumious bandersnatch.

      We attack the world of words with a vorpal sword in hand
Verses, like the Tumtum tree, sprouting in the sand
And structure with rhyming can be a manxome foe
Whiffling and burbling, the flaming words will go.

Choosing careful phrases can bring a frabjous day
And poems not dead, like borogoves, find their mimsy way
While galumphing through the tulgey lines with uffish chortled joy
It makes me through and through a whiffling beamish boy

So Lewis paints a picture with unreal words so clear
The Jabberwock seems so real and something we should fear
Poetry is the art of words, with phrasing, tales and fun
Proceed carefully, and beware the Jabberwock my son.
Tribute to Lewis Carroll
Donall Dempsey Sep 2021
IT WAS A FRABJOUS DAY

The Jabberwock was
having its usual

cup of coffee
its tenth of the day.

Black.
Always black.

One could see coffee grains
caught in its teeth

Always the same
big grin.

We joked
(behind its back of course)

that Jabberwock
meant coffee ******.

Not because we were fearful
but because he was such

a sensitive soul
and we didn't want to

cause offense
where no offense was meant.

It could get a bit
uffish.

An unlit cigarette clung
to its slobbery lips.

It didn't smoke but
wanted to appear to do so.

The mome raths were outgrabbing
they never seemed to stop.

The Cheshire Cat
(not all there)

smiled its smile
we called it Mona Lisa.

We were all just
hanging about

as you do when
your author ponders.

Nobody dared to
approach him.

He was a God
to us.

Me and the rest of the Toves
knew our place

and played cards
with the Borogoves.

The Borogoves
were cheaters.

The Jubjub birds were
bored out of their tiny skulls

perching in the branches of
the TumTum trees in Tulgey Wood.

The Bandersnatch was having
a frumious forty winks.

We were glad to be
just alive if only

in words -
words was our world.

No use getting all
mimsy about it.

We weren't as slithy
as we were made out to be.

We practiced our
gyre and gimble.

We were merely
the creatures of his brain.

We wouldn't dare disturb
the Author for fear

of being
scratched out.

Nobody 'cept the manxome
Jabberwock that is.  

"But what's my motivation  Mr. Carroll?"
He'd forever burble.

"Could I not take just a small bite perhaps
out of the little beamish chap ?" he'd whiffle.

Mr. Carroll( nobody dared
to call him Lewis)

just smiled and
Jack Jabberwock would galumphed back.

"Ok! Places everyone - 'tis brillig!
and the story limped on again.

It was a frabjous day
a really frabjous day.

All that could be heard was
the dripping of a tap

and the constant
scratching of the pen

creating forever
creating

the next sentence.
Donall Dempsey Sep 2020
IT WAS A FRABJOUS DAY

The Jabberwock was
having its usual

cup of coffee
its tenth of the day.

Black.
Always black.

One could see coffee grains
caught in its teeth

Always the same
big grin.

We joked
(behind its back of course)

that Jabberwock
meant coffee ******.

Not because we were fearful
but because he was such

a sensitive soul
and we didn't want to

cause offense
where no offense was meant.

It could get a bit
uffish.

An unlit cigarette clung
to its slobbery lips.

It didn't smoke but
wanted to appear to do so.

The mome raths were outgrabbing
they never seemed to stop.

The Cheshire Cat
(not all there)

smiled its smile
we called it Mona Lisa.

We were all just
hanging about

as you do when
your author ponders.

Nobody dared to
approach him.

He was a God
to us.

Me and the rest of the Toves
knew our place

and played cards
with the Borogoves.

The Borogoves
were cheaters.

The Jubjub birds were
bored out of their tiny skulls

perching in the branches of
the TumTum trees in Tulgey Wood.

The Bandersnatch was having
a frumious forty winks.

We were glad to be
just alive if only

in words -
words was our world.

No use getting all
mimsy about it.

We weren't as slithy
as we were made out to be.

We practiced our
gyre and gimble.

We were merely
the creatures of his brain.

We wouldn't dare disturb
the Author for fear

of being
scratched out.

Nobody 'cept the manxome
Jabberwock that is.  

"But what's my motivation  Mr. Carroll?"
He'd forever burble.

"Could I not take just a small bite perhaps
out of the little beamish chap ?" he'd whiffle.

Mr. Carroll( nobody dared
to call him Lewis)

just smiled and
Jack Jabberwock would galumphed back.

"Ok! Places everyone - 'tis brillig!
and the story limped on again.

It was a frabjous day
a really frabjous day.

All that could be heard was
the dripping of a tap

and the constant
scratching of the pen

creating forever
creating

the next sentence.
Damien Ko Jul 2017
my midnight dancer does gyre and gimble
stretch compress absent duress
twist and turn and turn and then again
midnight dancer through leaps and bounds
it's mesmerizing joy carefree set free
unbound midnight dancer goes forward
unbound midnight dancer ambles
limbs flung out then twisting in
alone midnight dancer alone tonight
alone midnight dancer takes flight

into dreams unabashed into fantasies shamelessly thought
a spin and a turn midnight dancer spectral ephemeral continuance
More later this is a draft
Damien Ko Apr 2019
chilled lemonade, fresh strawberries and cream
iced out, relaxing, spring in sunbeams
golden moment, timeless dream
the world turns slower, the second pristine
rejoin in the shade under the tree
walk the road home with childish glee
gyre and gimble, play and tease
through wax and wane til summer sun sets beneath
peals to echoes and echoes ceased
tomorrow! tomorrow! oh please, please?
watery melon, juice fresh squeezed
                  cool beans
Donall Dempsey Sep 2023
IT WAS A FRABJOUS DAY

The Jabberwock was
having its usual

cup of coffee
its tenth of the day.

Black.
Always black.

One could see coffee grains
caught in its teeth

Always the same
big grin.

We joked
(behind its back of course)

that Jabberwock
meant coffee ******.

Not because we were fearful
but because he was such

a sensitive soul
and we didn't want to

cause offense
where no offense was meant.

It could get a bit
uffish.

An unlit cigarette clung
to its slobbery lips.

It didn't smoke but
wanted to appear to do so.

The mome raths were outgrabbing
they never seemed to stop.

The Cheshire Cat
(not all there)

smiled its smile
we called it Mona Lisa.

We were all just
hanging about

as you do when
your author ponders.

Nobody dared to
approach him.

He was a God
to us.

Me and the rest of the Toves
knew our place

and played cards
with the Borogoves.

The Borogoves
were cheaters.

The Jubjub birds were
bored out of their tiny skulls

perching in the branches of
the TumTum trees in Tulgey Wood.

The Bandersnatch was having
a frumious forty winks.

We were glad to be
just alive if only

in words -
words was our world.

No use getting all
mimsy about it.

We weren't as slithy
as we were made out to be.

We practiced our
gyre and gimble.

We were merely
the creatures of his brain.

We wouldn't dare disturb
the Author for fear

of being
scratched out.

Nobody 'cept the manxome
Jabberwock that is.  

"But what's my motivation  Mr. Carroll?"
He'd forever burble.

"Could I not take just a small bite perhaps
out of the little beamish chap ?" he'd whiffle.

Mr. Carroll( nobody dared
to call him Lewis)

just smiled and
Jack Jabberwock would galumphed back.

"Ok! Places everyone - 'tis brillig!
and the story limped on again.

It was a frabjous day
a really frabjous day.

All that could be heard was
the dripping of a tap

and the constant
scratching of the pen

creating forever
creating

the next sentence.

— The End —