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Write a poem rhyming the word “orange” with something else. Post it in the comments below. This challenge comes from Cheryl Corey, who provided the below poem as inspiration:
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Nothing Rhymes With Orange
Why, oh why, does nothing rhyme with orange?
But if I say it en franҫais—“l’orange,”
Aha! I get a woman’s name—“Solange!”
but back to orange …
Maybe I can fudge it? For example:
By candlelight her face was even more angelic;
The Rolling Stones once wrote a song for Angie;
The tourist’s choice: Rhône valley or Anjou.
I rack my brain and these are but a sample,
The options being few and hardly ample,
Which leads me where? Where else,
but back to orange.
.
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Mating Ritual
The sun shined slivers from its gold-orange
Sphere, breaking through the trees as to avenge
The makers of Stonehenge, tied to the sun
And sun-made oaks, in cloaks that hands had spun,
Ensuring purity with their pure hands,
Hands pure from human blood as the demands
Of deity are met, to find the one
That does not rhyme a match — or is there none? —
A match that doesn’t match and therefore makes
A more engaging mate, until it takes
Its final line of light below the lip
Of land and light releases its last grip.
Thank you for your contribution, Troy.
Good old King William of Orange
Said “All of my subjects are foreignj-
Ust ‘cos I’m Dutch,
They don’t like me much,
So I think I’ll head back to Orange.”
Interesting take, and I like the way your play on “back to Orange”.
As I walked to the yard to pick an orange,
I tore my new pants upon the door hinge.
Short and sweet.
Nothing Rhymes with ORANGE!!
I’m foraging for words that rhyme with orange.
No poet worth a verse could fail to meet
A challenge that would make the lesser scribe cringe –
Unhinge and singe a mind not used to heat.
I’ve sucked a lozenge as I’ve scaled The Blorenge,
Impinging on the fringe of nature’s worth
For inspiration; all I found was ‘sporange’ –
a nerdy term for fern – a wordsmith’s curse!
I scavenge for a stringent orange melange
And I won’t wail or whinge although I burst
For more than mere obstringe, syringe, or door hinge –
Cringeworthy words that fail to slake my thirst.
I won’t settle for a mangy tangerine
When a juicy orange stanza is my dream.
NB
The Blorenge – a mountain in Monmouthshire, S E Wales
sporange – a botanical term for part of a fern
or whinge – mispronunciation of orange 😉
Susan, yours may be the closest yet. Do “Blorenge” and “sporange”, when pronounced, qualify as exact rhymes?
I found it maddening to come up with the words which, when elided, would sound even close to orange. So many highly-skilled poets visit this site. I knew that I would be out-done!
P.S. I love your ending couplet.
Thank you, Cheryl. What a great challenge with a great inspirational poem to spur us poets on. I love all the responses. I think ‘Blorenge’ and ‘sporange’ qualify as exact rhymes. The tough task was fitting them into a poem that made some sort of sense… I don’t think I’ve quite succeeded, but I had a lot of fun trying. Thanks again!
But, Susan, isn’t the botanical term actually “sporangium?”
In cockney if ‘arry says “apples and pears”
‘E’s really describing a walk down the stairs.
If I ‘aggle a bit with me “trouble and strife”
I’m really addressing my dear ‘appy wife”
So now will you join me for gin and an orange?
Oh, blimey, I’ve broken the lock and the door ‘inge!
Really well done, Brian, especially if you read it aloud and try to get into a cockney groove. Clever that you thought to rhyme orange with “door ‘inge”.
This is wicked good! Well done, lad.
Brian, I couldn’t Adam and Eve that you could write in cockney. I am just waiting for my trouble and strife to sort her Barnet Fair before nipping down to the Indian for a Ruby Murray. Brilliant verse.
I only know a couple of cockney phrases so I actually had to go to google to translate your incomprehensibly fun comment. I hope your Ruby Murray was delicious. Shabba ranks, Jeff!
Two Ronnies Cockney List
Order four candles
Seven fork ‘andles
Twenty door ‘inges
Forty oranges…
Thanks Brian!
Brian, how innovative and hilarious… if only I’d have thought of the cockney path to orange success! My dad’s a cockney and I’ve learned a lot of cockney rhyming slang. Cockneys always drop their aitches. My rather posh mother reprimanded my dad for that ‘orrible ‘abit, so he decided to add inappropriate Haitches. I roared with laughter at his Helephants, Happles, and Hanything Helse Hamusing ‘eaded my way.
Thank you, Susan. That’s a fantastic family story! Might there be a humorous poem lurking in there…? You could have a lot of fun writing it!
The winner so far, IMHO.
Yeah Brian, the cockney accent works. As Hyacinth Bouquet’s brother-in-law on the British sitcom “Keeping Up Appearances says: “Nice.” LOL!
Brian, although I do not want to be included in this orange competition, I offer the following:
“My rights shall not be infringed.”
I have turned from pale red to deep orange.
He attacked me with a Covid syringe,
and kept jabbing until I came unhinged.
(LOL! AS music to Psycho is playing)
Thanks, Tamara! I thoroughly enjoyed your poem as well!
Said the proud orange to the kiwi,
“What a shrimp!” But the grapefruit sneered. She
Then declared to the orange,
“You’ll notice my four inch-
Es bests your pedestrian three.”
(Apologies to the little kiwi for improper accentuation.)
A nice little fellow
Once threw me an orange
Plump, tasty and mellow…
But out of my jaw range.
Clever and resourceful.
The French seized the Saar (1920)
Because it had coal mines a-plenty.
The tale has this little addendum:
The Krauts, in a huge referendum,
Got it back, but when Hitler was beaten,
The French (at a big post-war meetin’)
Took it over once more for ten years
Until they were paid their arrears.
Then back to the Germans the place went
And French underwent an effacement.
All of these doings were legal —
The Saar’s under Germany’s eagle.
It’s tougher than rhyming with orange —
All of this intricate Saar-change.
I was once asked to rhyme the word ‘orange’,
Believe it or not, with ‘something else’.
Thank you.
Genius.
When you have a sore throat, it’s best
to give all kinds of Strepsils a test;
and I find the lozenge
that’s flavoured with orange
tastes better than all of the rest.
Orange trees
“Are inj”ured by freeze.
He once belonged to a lunatic fringe
who stood against to the plutocracy
also detested of hypocrisy
spit vexingly the pips of an orange.
But his reckless act made his wings to singe.
Now he in silence lives out his last days
in the hospital and blankly does gaze
at a needle attached to a syringe.
The Desserting Captain
The captain of the Gettysburg, Gorringe,
Was partial to a jelly-like blancmange
Partaken lazing on his prized chaise longue,
Upholstered in a safety vest orange.
David…brilliant!
A crafty Orangutan sat up a tree,
And thought, “ I could add an additional ‘e’
To make my name longer, so happy I’d be,
“Orangeutan’ sounds very French, you’ll agree.
So pleased with himself,
As he chomped a blood orange,
Then he sat on some embers,
Which made his poor arse singe.
Antique kitchenware
Without a manual, I seem
Quite lost midst pewter’s aging gleam
And copper’s fire, and earthen’s dusty-orange.
Do platters… platt? Seems causable…
A pitcher’s pitch sounds plausible….
But I’ll consign to history how to porringe.
witty
When juicing, Angelo, I think
It’s best to do it in the sink
Because it isn’t likely that
You can escape without a splat
From any plump and beauteous orange
That you have sliced in quarters, Ange.
Lovely!
exquisitely understated.
Takes time to appreciate it!
Orange, smorange — no problema!
Nash confessed with wink of eye.
Why, anything can rhyme with something
When one’s diligent . . . and wry!
This is hilariously clever!
He bought it from his friend Pedro,
Assured that God he soon would know.
An open channel in his mind,
His inner vision realigned.
Into the bong, he placed the ganj—
Then polished off my duck a l’orange.
SOME WORDS REFUSE TO RHYME
By Roy E. Peterson (April 13, 2018)
I know some words refuse to rhyme
I run across them all the time.
Try to rhyme a word like “purple.”
Ned Miller made it “maple surple.”
We all know orange won’t rhyme in English.
I guess it makes the word distinguished.
One word only rhymes with “orange,”
An alternate form that is called “sporange.”
Now try to use that in a verse.
The poem would go from bad to worse.
A “sporange” is a piece of fern.
Something that I can’t unlearn.
The closest word to rhyme with “poem”
Is from the Bible. It’s “Jeroboam.”
Some words are close like “home,” or “roam,”
And I could use a trick like “hoe ’em.”
“Bulb” won’t rhyme with anything.
No matter what they do in spring.
Nothing rhymes with “silver” either.
Now I am a true believer.
I use “Angel” all the time,
But not at the end to rhyme.
There is no rhyme for “Angel,” so
I have to change poetic flow.
A few more with no rhymes observed,
Are “month” and then three spatial words.
“Width,” “breadth,” and “depth” don’t match,
With words from any other batch.
Poets have to take some time
To find words that really rhyme.
Next time I think we’ll discuss
The coining of “Snuffleupagus.”
Roy, you could have titled your poem, “Mission Impossible!” Well done. I liked it.
Excellent thought about the title and thank you for your kind words.
Thanks for this earlier piece, bringing attention to other words that are difficult to rhyme. Food for thought.
Sunday October 31, 2021
Orange hallow’s day
Where it leads
Hollow,
the pumpkin’s head.
October’s bugging, staying out.
Oh, no goulash.
Around October’s dead.
It’s the spookiest Halloween.
Sunday October 31, 2021
Orange hallow’s Eve
Where it leads
Hollow,
the pumpkin’s head.
October’s bugging, staying out.
Oh, no goulash.
Around October’s dead.
It’s the spookiest Halloween.
A rhyme for orange? I can do it!
Tapped an address on my cell phone,
Looked the answer up on “Rhyme Zone,”
Found that you’d all beat me to it!
Here is no Rhyme Zoning binge.
I looked up ‘orange’
in my undersized brain
and located a ‘lozenge’
betwixt and betwain
‘cringe’, ‘singe’ and ‘tinge’.
Love “betwixt and betwain”! The responses to this challenge are certainly impressive.
Of course we all know the old joke:
A: What rhymes with Orange?
B: No, it doesn’t!
Scientists at the cutting edge
Say we should eat more fruit and veg
But my fear of one citrus fruit
Has clinically been judged acute
I know I should not flinch or cringe
But I’ve no choice with an orange
There are at least three more words which don’t really rhyme in English–silver, month, and purple. I’ve incorporated all of them in the following poem:
A MOTHER OF A TEENAGE DAUGHTER LAMENTS
She’s turning my hair all silver,
That daughter I’d like to kill, Ver-
Onica. Asked for an orange,
She returned with a car hinge,
Lisping, “I’m not really a dunth–
It’s jutht my time of the month.”
Next, I swear, that little twerp’ll
Want to have her hair dyed purple.
Now that’s a feat!
And that’s that, a quartet of rhyming songwords closing down competition.
What a performance!
What a nutty narrative – I’m tickled by your pejorative!
A SOGGY LAMENT
Eugene O’Neil, got drunk, and found his face
In the mirror morphing pink to orange.
Asked to leave, he shouted, “It’s a disgrace!
“Why me? Just me? Not a vote to bar Inge!”
The bit to the end.