Invention

What marvellous invention did you make,
An item so much larger than regret,
That time went by and no one could forget
The incident when, even with the fake,
All of the women who still felt an ache
Began to sing, and all the men we met
Were gentle, thinking, What buffoon would fret
In such a lovely spot, for heaven's sake?

You never told your secret, never talked
Of anything but accidental cheer,
And offered nothing but a glass of beer
To all inquiries. Every route was blocked,
All roads, each alley and dark path we stalked,
But your invention somehow made things clear.

Making Things Work

The cardinal's infraction, venial
While more than standard (and when he was young),
Was yet somehow remembered, as it stung:
"You told us," they averred, "that Sweeney'll
Make things work; he was not congenial,
And though the words came tripping off your tongue
His answer was a rippling snake among
Us pigeons, and he called us menial."

That myocardial infarction hit
And changed the way we measured everything,
So when old Sweeney's ass began to sing
They whistled right along, told him to sit
And had the cardinal sit, too. One wit
Claimed that the Lord's voice had been thundering.

Leap Year Sonnet

Counting the twenty-ninth of February
As something special, when you're sixty-four
You're only sixteen birthdays old. What's more,
If groups of singing waiters making merry
Is less appealing, if somewhat more hairy,
Than dancing cats, you've saved over two score
Unpleasant meals, so pop the cork and pour,
And offer a fresh toast to the Blue Fairy.

Counting the day instead as something weird,
An oddment of the calendar, a day
Out of the normal run of things, you say,
"If I had birds' nests filling up my beard --
An outcome of hirsuteness all have feared --
I'd hate it less than this." And that's okay.

In a Vain but Very Varied Vein

She died intestate, in a wicked state
Upon a moor, beside a restless Moor
Who was a boor, though not in fact a Boer;
They ate liver pâté from the live pate
Of an entrenched trained trencherman whose fate
Was fêtes poorly designed to aid the poor.
The lure of lurid lust, the cross-eyed lour
Of John Locke and light lattes made him late.

The coarse cops found her corpse deep in a copse
That rose above the hedgerows, one white rose
Laid by her nose. As everybody knows,
The barbers, with their barbed, barbaric yawps,
Had shorn Locke's locks, on shore near chandlers' shops
And charnel houses, in striped hose, with hoes.