If cartoons are now on the Geneva Convention's list of banned weapons for waging civilizational war, what is left in freedom's arsenal? Inspired by
Brit's paean to the unexpected rhyme, I've concocted an appropriately sensitive yet forceful critique of the radical Islamist threat to our cherished freedoms in verse. Please note that this limerick requires deliberate mispronounciation to achieve the rhyming effect.
An earnest young prophet named Mohammed
A religion of peace once proclaimed
Yet his followers in zeal
His intentions unreveal
Resulting in a world enflamed
Hmmmm, I'm at a loss at to just how to "mispronounce" the limerick to rhyme. Do you make proclaimed and enflamed 3 syllables? Do you make Mohammed's 'a' long or the other two's 'a's short?
ReplyDeleteI'll critique your limerick with another:
There was a blogger named Duck
Who at limericks tried 'is luck
It's oh so sad
That his rhyming was bad
But it's funny so what the phik
(Last line needs to be mispronounced to rhyme also).
The story of Mohammed the prophet
ReplyDeleteAt least the way that I'll blog it
Was about using the sword
For Allah the Lord
And for whatever else that he saw fit
Yes, I made them 3 syllables. Pro-clam-med and en-flam-med. you are quite the poet, Bret! Let's give it another try:
ReplyDeleteAn editor from Jyllands Posten
A contest of cartoons he did host'en
When Mohammed they did jibe
A fatwa mullahs proscribe
Now hide he lest he become a ghost'en
Much better!
ReplyDeleteSurely, I am in the presence of greatnesses.
ReplyDeleteHmmm, I know you're a fan of amateurism Duck, but you can take it too far.
ReplyDeleteHere's how it's done (though it can't match my first effort, which included four rhymes for 'Jyllands-Posten'):
If I had a hat I wouldn't doff it
To the publishers of the bomb-headed Prophet,
Free speech they were claiming,
But with the Embassy flaming,
They ran faster than Little Miss Muffet.
Sorry, couldn't resist this one...
ReplyDeleteThere was a young Briton called Shah,
Who liked cricket and a nice cup of cha,
To Islamification
He preferred his Playstation,
And occasionally propping up the bar.
But some rationalists who came from afar,
Had some bad news for poor Mr Shah,
He was under a delusion!
The Koran's logical conclusion
Obliged him to declare a fatwah!
I shall have that engraved on my headstone, Peter.
ReplyDeleteTo return the compliment:
There was an old foggy* called Peter,
With manners that couldn't be sweeter,
He could always be found
On the moral High Ground,
Playing hell with Jeff's Irony Meter.
*sic
There was a young blogger named Cohen,
ReplyDeleteWhose halo was always a-glowin',
All rows he'd defuse,
With his reasonable views,
'Til everyone chunks they were blowin'.
There was a young man called 'Oroborous',
ReplyDelete(The spelling of which is horroborous)
On God he'd decline
To toe the Duckian line,
But on economics he could frankly clobber us.
There was a young blogger called Harry,
ReplyDeleteWho'd more books than a tanker could carry,
The religious he'd rile
With his famed spiky style,
And his motto was 'On the contrary!'
There was a young man called Jeff Guinn,
ReplyDeleteFor whom logical gaffes were a sin,
He's uncannily correct
On every subject,
From morals to Marx to Darwin!
There was a young blogger called Judd,
ReplyDeleteWho looked like a bearded Roy Hudd,
He would answer all queries
With his set of pet theories,
(Or is he more like Elmer Fudd?)
And finally, a tribute to our host:
ReplyDeleteSome secular Juddians were stuck,
And feeling right down on their luck,
They felt somewhat cheated
When their posts were deleted,
So three cheers for Duquette and the Duck!
I'll have to do some research (the pseudonym for several seconds of desultory googling) to know for sure, but I think this thread belongs in the Guinness book as being the world's largest single collection of clean limericks.
ReplyDeleteSkipper:
ReplyDeleteIt required a Herculean effort of self-control not to spoil that record in the 'Duck' one.
Hear hear!
ReplyDeleteBrit, I proclaim thee the Poet Laureate of the Daily Duck!
Twas a cheeky young fellow named Brit
With upper lip stiffer than grit
He wowed all comers
'mongst his rhymes no bummers
And would argue you tat fot tit
Ach, they're just party pieces.
ReplyDeleteWait til you see my 10,000 line epic - in alternate blank verse and Hopkins-style 'sprung rhythm' - on the vital role of the decent left-handed middle-order batsman in halting the decline of western civilisation...
Duck:
Full marks for rhyming 'Brit' with 'tit' and still maintaining the hygiene record. That's how it's done, Peter...
Thor's Hammer, y'all are good.
ReplyDeleteI doff my hat. Seriously.
There once was a c’mmenter named Cohen,
ReplyDeleteWho felt out of all people chosen
To bring to this blog
The tidings of God
And those of His handmaiden, Reason.
He read a blog posting by Duck,
Who meant to God, deconstruct.
“The handmaiden,” Duck said,
“Should be god instead.
The beliefs of the past must be shucked.”
Duck dismissed God as a halfwit
For moral authority unfit.
Duck noted that Plato
Had an ethical credo
That Reason need not to God submit.
Duck’s friends were quick to applaud
His proving of morality flawed;
Their logic promoted,
Their egos quite bloated,
They saw themselves equal to God.
Come-uppance soon came from Riyadh,
In the form of a cartoon jihad.
Use of the image
Of the Prophet’s visage
Had started a Muslim maraud.
As the riots started mid-winter,
The Duckians’ started to splinter.
Some kept their aplomb,
Others wanted to bomb
(Poor Reason, they started to stint her.)
This pleased Cohen and his friend, Burnet,
Both of whom haunted the internet.
The Muslims they laud,
Because Allah is God,
And Reason is from Arabia absent.
David,
ReplyDeleteYou have raised the stakes in this war. You may expect a thorough and overwhelming (although not rapid) response under the doctrine of MAL (Mutually Assured Limericization).
Oroborous:
ReplyDeleteI said it above, but it bears repeating.
We are in the presence of Greatness.
A most valiant thrust from David's swordpen, to which I offer this unworthy parry:
ReplyDeleteA commendable effort to trump us,
And possibly even to stump us,
(Which is why we agree
That PB and DC
Are our favourite Bible-thumpers).
Nonetheless I find that I am bound
To declare your diagnosis unsound,
Not in the abstract
But on one point of fact,
Upon which I’ll proceed to expound:
The argument that you advance,
Is that morality we view askance,
And that good and bad,
Like joyful or sad,
Are for us just a matter of chance.
Or rather you think we insist,
That morality doesn’t exist
In some objectivity,
And given your proclivity
To religion, this makes you quite pissed.
But I believe that you are much mistaken,
For morality we have not forsaken,
It’s just that its wares
Lie in human affairs,
They’re still real as fried eggs and bacon.
Now this blog has become quite perverse,
And you might say it couldn’t get worse,
For I mean, what the deuce!
Have we been reduced
To the same old bloody arguments in verse?
Brit was a friend of the Duck,
ReplyDeleteWho argued with no little pluck
"God's moral laws
Give me no pause,
To Your rules I say what the
heck are you talking about? Using reason I can come up with results that are just as good as any arbitrary, hide-bound rule."
Peter B, you are such a sweet-talker,
ReplyDeleteYour reply to my verse was a corker,
It’s true that I gambled,
But my eggs were quite scrambled,
And you made mincemeat of my poor porker.
Though they say ‘twice shy’ once you are bitten,
Yet you seem quite as soft as a kitten,
And though a punch you do pack
Here’s my counter-attack,
(I guess I’ll tee 'em up and you’ll hit 'em!)
It might seem that my eggs are all fried,
But I feel I’m obliged to confide,
That, to put it quite coarse,
You have backed the wrong horse,
And the blindness is all on your side.
Now I quite understand your confusion,
But I think I can give the solution,
You just have to twig
That the hen and the pig,
Are both products of Evolution!
A reasonable Jew named Cohen
ReplyDeleteTo evangelize the godless got goin'
With wit he did pluck
At the feathers of Duck
Who preached Man's kin was protozoan
Duck revered not old master Plato
Who held no such thing was potato
But a mere reflection
Of tuberous perfection
Ensconsed in ethereal pneumato
Now Cohen saw errors abounding
If in absolutes nothing had grounding
How goodness obtained
Without Godhead proclaimed
Only Man's will in echo was sounding
But Duck saw a motive ulterior
Commanded good was not superior
Tis simple obedience
A trifling expedience
To saving one's cherished posterior
Timeless themes they sought to recover
Converted not one or the other
In eternal opposition
Their preferred supposition
In civility plied, brother to brother
I believe that "...a mere reflection/Of tuberous perfection/
ReplyDeleteEnsconsed in ethereal pneumato" is one of the most magnificent lines of poetry yet contrived by mankind.
I am honored, Brit!
ReplyDeleteI must admit to using an online rhyming dictionary to come up with "pneumato".
I think you ought to put this post on the sidebar as a special feature for those moments of poetic inspiration - it's too good to be buried....
ReplyDeleteWow.
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is:
My amazement I have to confess
'Cause these limericks really impress
I've ne'er before seen
Cogitations so keen
Regarding topics that bring such distress
They put the discussions to rhyme
Which must have taken a really long time
But Duck did admit
To help everything fit
A rhyming tool was a parner in crime
Nonetheless the debates were profound
And this thread should be world renowned
Those who visit this post
Will no doubt get the most
From the ideas that these poets expound
Wow.
ReplyDeleteI’m astonished you’ve all got the time
To concoct endless devious rhymes
When I’m sat at my desk
With no time for burlesque
My head soon to vapour sublime
Lived a man once with no mortal peer
ReplyDeleteA Bard of Avon named Billy Shakespeare
With visions of Heaven
And Hell did he leaven
Breads of beauty and grace we hold dear
So lowly have the Muses prostrated
To consorting with egos inflated
Our modern poseur artistic
Launching excretions ballistic
Our culture hath much desecrated