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The clerihew is a relatively new poetry form introduced by Edmund Clerihew Bentley in 1905. It is usually a single quatrain of light verse rhyming aabb, without a standard meter. The first line usually ends with a name, often one difficult to rhyme with, and comes up with a ridiculous rhyme for it in the second line. At the SCP, we usually require meter. Could the lack of meter in the clerihew be an attempt to capture a charming sense of school-boy doggerel or is it just a lack of skill and aversion to the modern stigma placed on tradition? At any rate, this contest seeks a specifically metrical clerihew just for the fun of it.
Talbot Hook has submitted the below metrical clerihew to get the ball rolling:
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The ever straight-shooting Diogenes,
No stranger to creatures’ biologies,
Gave Platonic depiction a lickin’
By presenting him with a plucked chicken.
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Post your metrical clerihew in the comments section below. The meter does not have to be the same as Mr. Hook’s above.
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A shrivelled-up bitch named Pelosi
Has a place in the House that is cozy.
When the GOP come, she’ll be out on her bum —
Her future don’t look very rosy.
Excellent, I think! Would pray your clerihew becomes a new and a saner reality!
The recent house Pelosi break-in, was, of course, President Trump’s fault? As is each crisis on planet earth! Enough of fabled narratives!
Those pandemic games of Fauci’s
Offensive as any foul breeze;
In Congress, defended his rules –
“Don’t question my Science, you fools!”
King Saul
Was not a king that we would want at all,
And proved what kind of trouble having a king
Would bring.
King David
So avid
For God’s house and after His heart
Gave the monarchy a second start.
The MLB Yank Aaron Judge
Gave Maris and Ruth each a nudge.
With 62 swings of his bat
He made both their records go splat.
The kitten-grabbing Donald Trump
came down to earth with a bump.
The voted out one-term president
is a White House ex-resident.
A senile buffoon is Joe Biden,
As cheap as aluminum sidin’.
When patriots come to start lynching the scum
I wonder where he will be hidin’.
President Biden
Acts like he’s died ‘n’
One day will awake and say
Where’ve I been since yesterday
When poor Joe Biden
took too much time deciding
whether to budge,
Kamala gave him a shove.
Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr.
to some, a bit peculiar;
to seniors he gives a sense
of pride –
there’s humility, nobility in
in graciously stepping aside.
Oh dear, Donald Trump
Is back on the stump
Wooing voters to say yes
To another four year mess
Ukraine’s the cash cow of joe Biden.
We all know the things he’s hiding…
Corruption and incompetence,
Alzheimers, incontinence.
Mike!
A smash hit clerihew on Biden!-))
Hope the New House finds specifics. he’s hiden!
Patricia
Do you remember Jerry Springer?
Each show was a high-octane zinger.
When his guests weren’t fighting, their mum and dad issues
caused tear-leaky eyes and much reaching for tissues.
Gave me a chuckle! What an unfortunate kind of show that is . . .
The daughter of Victor Hugo
From a closet, picked her blue coat
“Else in this miserable cold,
I’ll be hunchbacked ere I grow old.”
Joe Biden’s boy’s a mighty Hunter,
Hunting drugs and sex and plunder.
He’s been found out so he’s bereft,
But he walks free, he’s on the left.
Free movie!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=54wM7qW4S4o
Hi, Mike, apparently youtube doesn’t like this video; they sat it’s “unavailable”.
Quarterback “Broadway Joe” Namath
Cashed in his Super Bowl fame with
Those cringe-worthy Medicare ads;
His work was much better in pads
That portly porker, Caligula,
was constipated. An enema
was thus injected in his ass.
His turds exploded like shards of glass.
This is the right dose your handling out.
The ineffable Guy Fieri
Is our nation’s greatest canary;
In each diner, drive-in, or dive,
He’ll confirm you can come out alive.
In France they were fond of Napoleon
Who consumed Europe with some aioli in.
The British, dismayed by his style,
Had him twice carted off into exile.
A writer named Amanda Gorman
With luck that exceeds any four men,
Was named laureate poet of youth
But sans talent and challenged on truth.
Dr. Salemi’s limerick dressed as a clerihew above has me thinking that the clerihew may just be understood as a version of the limerick, perhaps better suited to difficult-to-rhyme names since you don’t need that second rhyme. But for many names, why not a limerick…
The entrepreneur Elon Musk
Is sharper than an elephant tusk:
He builds rocket ships, AI, microchips
And to politicians he is brusque.
Yes, Evan, you’re correct — I slipped into limerick form because it’s so easy to do when trying to compose a clerihew. Here’s a true clerihew in the more acceptable form:
Niccolo Machiavelli —
Was he really that bad? Oh well, he
Called things as they were,
And that always causes a stir.
The Blessed Virgin Mary
Was never once contrary
To God’s Law, or to any other—
A grace so she could be God’s mother!
The wife-fleeing Rip Van Winkle
Stopped in the woods for a twinkle;
But he aided a dutchman to carry his keg,
And awoke to find his beard reached his leg!
The anomaly Zaphod Beeblebrox,
More brainless than a large bag of rocks,
Is far more useless than a Quaker’s gun,
But he’s still the best bang since the big one.
(I couldn’t resist.)
If I had a choice of reading Ferlinghetti
or eating an unadorned bowl of spaghetti,
I’d opt for noodles sans sauce
rather than noodle-less dross.
Andrea Dworkin
Didn’t believe in porkin’.
“Intercourse is oppression!”
She screamed in a psychiatric session.
Ivan Petrovich Pavlov
Took a couple of days off.
A bell brought him out of his fog,
He said, “I must feed the dog!”
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Thought his ideas were peachy.
He once said that God was dead,
But God had the last word instead.
OR
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Was visited once by a preacher.
The reverend approached Nietzsche’s bed,
But God told him, “Nietzsche is dead.”
It’s reported that Great Socrates
Said hemlock’s a drink that agrees
With all the philosopher set…
The hangover’s not over yet!