MAR 14, reprehensible modern history: Democracy (18th century take)

(submitted version November '23:

The wannabe autocrat cheerless, / Mourned imperial days. "Kings were peerless: / No women, I'm noting, / Slaves or natives tried voting. / Closets hid all the gays -- none were fearless.")  

View the entire collection of poetic assertions on this topic  at our more encyclopedic blog 'Edifying Nonsense', by clicking HERE.

MAR 13, limericks about waterfowl (lunacy)

Authors' Note:  Birdlife is an occasionally used term, analogous to "wildlife", denoting aerial creatures that otherwise would have to be described by the term avifauna. Needless to say, all birdlife currently known is located on the planet Earth.

Our blogpost "Defining Opinion" on the topic-based blog "Edifying Nonsense" shows a selection of similar verses submitted to OEDILF (the online Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form). You can see all of these on one visit by clicking HERE.

MAR 12, folio-entry, couples: armadillos

You can review the 'brief saga' Cormorant Rookery by clicking HERE.

You can review illustrated verses on such bird-brained topics in a wider context by proceeding to 'Immersible Verse: Limericks about Waterfowl' on the full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. 

Cormorant diving
near Toronto island airport

double-crested cormorant,
 low flight due to relatively heavy bones 

MAR 11, lowcountry jumpoff: South Carolina outings

 

WOODLANDS NATURE RESERVE, Dorchester County SC, Feb 26, 2022

trails are sandy, but easy to negotiate with wide-tire bikes

historically and ecologically important, the longleaf pine,
characteristic of Southern forests, is again being nurtured.

MIDDLETON GARDENS, Dorchester County SC, Feb 27, 2022

the scenic highway has a mysterious beauty in the rain

it's a bit early in the season for the azaleas,
but the camellias are blooming wonderfully

\

indica azaleas, found blooming in a few of the sunnier spots

An illustrated poem on the indica azalea and its special relation to Middleton Gardens can be found HERE.

MAR 10, a brief saga (death and the afterlife): bequest

You can review more poems about 'Death and the Afterlife' in context on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE!

 For the purpose of this blog, a 'brief saga' is defined as a poem, usually narrative, but occasionally expository, that tell its story in at least 15 lines.

 Most commonly, the format involves three stanzas in limerick form, constituting a single submission to the online humor site 'Omnificent English Dictionary in Limerick Form'. On the OEDILF site, rigorous standards for content and format proceed in a collaborative editing process that may take several weeks to over a year. 

  Generally, OEDILF has not been enormously welcoming of multi-verse submissions, but Giorgio Coniglio has persisted, and the OEDILF number for each accepted multiverse poem is shown here on the slide with its first verse. And the good news is that almost all limerick-derived verses can be set to music!

To access the next 'brief saga' on this blog (April 2022), proceed to 'Anglo-Latin and -Greek'.

To access the most recent previous 'brief saga' (February 2022), back up to 'A Gnat and a Nit' (attributed to Ogden Nash).

 To access all of our 'brief sagas' by the year of their creation, click on your selection below.

2020
2021
2022
2023.

       

MAR 9, spineless verse (invertebrates): centipedes

 

READING MORE WIDELY:

You can find all our illustrated verses about various 'INVERTEBRATES' , as compiled on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense" HERE. But, in fact, we had hived off verses about INSECTS, and they are gathered in separate blogposts that you can get into HERE. So, follow these links, and enjoy.

MAR 8, poets' corner: creative writing

Authors' Note: 'Creative writing' is a term that has been applied to fiction in prose, but seems to have omitted from its purview fictional poetry accounts, such as those honored on this blog.  

   

You can find lots of other verses on this blog under the listing "Poets' Corner".  Click HERE.
  

MAR 7, limerick for lovers of classic languages: Constantinopolis (Byzantium)

 a) Reprise of material posted on March 7 in previous years ...

2020: Charleston garden, creeping fig (illustrated poem)
2021: classic palindrome, sex of foxes (poem) 

2022: California excursions, Oakland (illustrated poem)
2023: lexicon of word-pairs, alliterative binomials L (wordplay)

Authors' Note: Our seer in Byzántion likely made his prediction in the early 4th century A.D.

Byzántion: Greek name for the Greek colonial city-state founded on the Bosporus in pre-Roman times; known in Latin as Byzantium, it lent its name to the subsequent Byzantine Empire

Konstantinoúpolis, and Constantinopolis: Greek and Latin names respectively for the expanded city, planned as his empire's eastern capital (Nova Roma) by Roman emperor Constantine; known in English as Constantinople

Hagia Sophia (ah-yah so-FEE-ah) Greek for Holy Wisdom; famed for its huge dome, the third iconic church built on the site served as an Eastern Orthodox cathedral from 537 A.D. until 1453, the year of conquest by the Ottoman Turks

Istanbul: capital of the Ottoman Empire, and subsequently of modern Turkey, the city's current population of 15 million (2017) makes it Europe's most populous city.

To review all of our output on the topic of classic languages, go to our encyclopedic compendium, "Edifying Nonsense"; click HERE !

MAR 6, pathos and poetry (gun control verse): semi-automatic weapons

Satirical verse dealing with a regional form of insanity:

You can review our entire poetic outpouring on this topic by proceeding to a post on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'; click HERE.
 

Incidental Photo:

MAR 5, Ontario nostalgia: Yonge Street

Authors' Note:  The first Lieutenant-Governor of the province Of Upper Canada (Ontario), Sir John Simcoe, sought routes leading northward from his new 

provincial capital at Toronto, away from the U.S. border.

  In 1793, he designed a road, naming it for the British Minister of War, Sir George Yonge, who was also an expert on Roman roads. Yonge Street passes from Lake Ontario north to Lake Simcoe, where it merges into Highway 11, a rural road that extends 1900 km (1200 mi) northwest to the border with the American state of Minnesota.

  Sir George, fifth Baronet of Escot, had served as Lord of the Admiralty and master of the mint, and governor of the Cape Colony, but died penniless and heirless, Yonge Street being his only legacy.

 

  Prior to 1999, the Guinness Book of Records mistakenly conflated Yonge Street with Highway 11, and described it as 'the world's longest street’.  

See Wikipedia's article on Toronto's Yonge Street, HERE. 

You can review the entire series of illustrated poems about the good old days in Ontario by checking the post 'Ontario Nostalgia' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE. 

Incidental Photo:

Dr. JJ, preparing for a family birthday tribute