NOV 30, singable satire: Muddy Waters Sings "CRAYFISH ETOUFFEE (Inferno, Canto 6)

 PASTICHE WITH PARODY SONG-LYRICS

ORIGINAL POEM:  Canto#6 of "Inferno" by Dante Alighieri, the first book in the triad, "The Divine Comedy", written in the early 14th century.
ORIGINAL SONG: "Baby, Please Don't Go", Big Joe Williams 1935, popularized by Muddy Waters, used here primarily for music and meter.

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, November 2015.
PARODY-SONGLINK: To find ukulele and guitar chord-charts to help you accompany "Crayfish Étouffée" on your favorite instrument, click HERE.

In the Third Circle, Dante sees the fate of gluttons like his friend from Florence named ‘Ciacco’ (the equivalent of ‘Piggy’). No fire used for torture here; the climate sounds like Toronto in March. The poor souls confined here in the freezing mud are tormented by a demonic three-headed dog, Cerberus. I took some liberties with Ciacco’s tale; in the original, he discusses the complex politics of 14th century Florence. The details I provided re Ciacco's gluttonous exploits are imagined. Eschatology is the part of theology concerned with final judgment and the destiny of the soul.  Étouffée is a delicious Louisiana dish of seafood, usually crayfish, in a Cajun roux sauce.

"Cerberus", W. Blake

New Orleans style crayfish etouffée

DANTE, GO AND SEE 

(to the tune of "Baby Please Don't Go")

Sono al cerchio terzo,

Dov'è'l crudele Cerbero

La pena di golosi; mi veggio intorno

Novi tormentati.

Dante go and see

Dante go and see

Dante go and see what’s in Circle Three - 

They punish gluttony.

Virge led me way down here

Virge brought me way down here

Another Ring of Fear, fiend in charge appear

Be a three-headed dog.

Thermostat set low

Pelting rain, hail, snow

Sinners grovel, sit in freezing mud, like sh*t

Hounded by that cursed dog.

Guy who waves hello -

Dante used to know,

‘Ciacco’, brought so low; he’s a Florentine

He tells his story, so …..

'ALL YOU EAT - ' , sign say - 

'CRAYFISH ÉTOUFFÉE'
Stayed all day and ate food from New Orleans

Now Circle Three’s my fate. ”

Virgil’s prophecy:

Eschatology -

Our friend ‘Piggy’ sit in that freezing sh*t

‘Til final trumpet blow.

So baby, please don’t stray

Don’t pig out that way

Don’t eat étouffée down in New Orleans

Or Circle Three’s your fate.

Dante go and see

Dante go and see

Dante go and see what’s in Circle Three - 

They punish gluttony.

NOV 29: mammalian wildlife: horsing around

 You can review the whole collection of illustrated verses about mammals (both domestic and exotic) by checking out the more extensive post on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE !

NOV 28r, savoir-faire: franglais

 

a) reprise from November 2020

NOV 28, savoir-faire: franglais

Authors' Note:

en visite (ahn vee-ZEET): ‘while visiting'

les touristes (lay too-REEST):  'the tourists’

non-français (non frahn-SEH): ‘not French (speaking)’

ils causaient (eel koh-ZEH): 'they chatted‘

Québécois (kay-bay-KWAH): ‘resident of Quebec (province)’

franglais (frahn-GLEH): ‘Franglais, a mixed lingo’

 You can review verses on this topic in a wider context on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Check the post 'Vers Francais: Savoir-Faire' by clicking HERE. 

b) Decorative Touches 

 fabric art by R.C.H., presented with thanks

NOV 27, poets' corner: brief sagas (doggerel)

NOV 26r-, portraits of couples: turkeys

 

reprise from November 2020

NOV 26, portraits of couples: turkeys, domestic and wild

HAPPY AMERICAN THANKSGIVING TO ALL !!!

Enjoy an illustrated poem about domestic turkeys by clicking HERE.

 You can view these samples from our portfolio of 'Couples' portraits in a wider context on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE.

NOV 25, Submitted Palindromes: H, targeted at "LISA BONET ATE NO BASIL."

 

NOV 24r, waterfowl: great egrets

 

 a) reprise from November 2020

 

NOV 24, waterfowl: great egrets

b) more great egret views

great egret, stalking slowly

great egret, striking

takeoff  from railing,
Shem Creek Park, Mt Pleasant SC

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

NOV 23, Canadiana: crept and leaped

 

Authors' Note:   We have the good fortune in Canada, in some instances, of choosing either standard British grammar or the American version thereof. In the US, the commonly employed past tenses are "creeped" and "leaped"; these would alter the rhyming of the poem's second and fourth lines. A US-compatible version of this poem is also in the works, but to date preliminary efforts remain heaped under the carpet.

You can review poems, pictures and diverse nonsense related to Canada on the post "Canadiana" on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense".

NOV 22r-, birdlore: desnooded

 

reprise from November 2020

NOV 21, birdlore: turkeys, desnooded (pre-holiday fling)

 You can view an encyclopedic collection of illustrated poems on this topic by proceeding to the post 'Poems about BIRDLORE' on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE. 

NOV 21, ambulatory verse: reverse

Authors' Note: 

do a 180: a colloquialism for reversing direction deriving from half the number of degrees in a complete circle; here, as elsewhere, voiced as one-eighty

The author, an old palindromist, finds it appropriate to mention in the context of 'doing a 180', a few palindromic phrases using the verb reverse. These include:

Codes reverse, Doc; Noses reverse, son; Dikes reverse, kid; 

Drawer: sides reversed is ... reward; and the very dark Nooses reverse soon. 

NOV 20, singable satire for Thanksgiving: another pair-ody -- "TURKEY LEFTOVERS"

PASTICHE with PARODY LYRICS subbed into TWO WELL-KNOWN SEASONAL SONGS, another pairody.

ORIGINAL SONG#1: "The Christmas Song" (Chestnuts...), written by Wells and Tormé  in 1944, and recorded by the Nat King Cole Trio 1946.

ORIGINAL SONG#2: "Good King Wenceslas", John Mason Neale 1853, but often now mistakenly referred to as 'traditional'. Neale's piece, (based on accounts of the Bohemian Wenceslas legend, and a 13th century 'spring- carol tune) was highly criticized in the 1920s as "ponderous moral doggerel"; see the interesting description in the Wikipedia essay on this topic.

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, January, 2015. 

PARODY-SONGLINK: To find ukulele chord-charts to help you accompany "Turkey Leftovers" on your favorite instrument, click HERE. 

TURKEY LEFTOVERS

(to the tune of The Christmas Song - "Chestnuts Roasting")

Essay featured in Economist,
Turkeys' origins disclosed -
Centerpiece of each year's Yuletide feast,
Subspecies bred in Mexico.

Dolts like me believed that gobblers and that Mid-East land -
Names were mere coincidence.
Ottomans, trading ships, caravans -
I understand, it now makes sense.

Each year I prove I'm such a goof,
I try create too late a spiffy Christmas spoof,
But with a month's delay I'll get it right
Helped by this article about "Turkey's Flight".

And so I'm offering this paraphrase
Of what the author claimed was true,
French - d'inde, and the Turks call them "hindi" - what jerks!
While in India, name in Hindi,
And in Portugal's "peru".

To the tune of "Good King Wenceslas")


Montezuma once bred fowl tastier than pheasant; 
Shipped the Spanish queen a thou - funky kind of present.
Isabella loathed the birds, trimmings too displeased her;
No use for leftovers, she didn't have a free-eezer.

'Turkeys', Moors, then Jews were banned from the royal kitchens;
Legend says that's how began Spanish Inquisition - 
Cortes later sacked the lands of the Aztec ruler.
Phil or Izz-and-Ferdinand ? Can't say which was cru-ueller.

Avian émigrés toured through, crowns of Europe hosting,
Though few of their lackeys knew oven-time for roasting.
Hot or cold and steep or flat, exiled birds were living,
Prospered in those countries that didn't have Thanksgi-iving.

Thus this misnamed flock did cope through the 16th century,
'ventually hens copped some hope with the English gentry.
For some time they settled down,  breeding they found boring,
Westward they shipped out again, restlessly explo-oring.

Turkeys in America, native home recovered,
Quirky and hysterical history discovered -
Essay we would clearly rank best of the Econ'mist,
Author we should dearly thank-(s)he remains anon-ymous.

NOV 19, exemplification: house

                                 

 To review our whole collection of "exemplary exemplifications", click HERE. 

 

NOV 18r-, portraits of couples: broad-headed skinks, llamas

reprise from November 2020

NOV 18, portraits of couples: broad-headed skinks, llamas

 

Enjoy an illustrated poem about the broad-headed skink, Plestiodon laticeps by clicking HERE.

You can view these samples from our portfolio of 'Couples' portraits in a wider context on our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE.

NOV 17, palinku (poetic novelty): global warming

 

  In this post, we continue with our novel form of poetic wordplay. 

  Inspired by Japanese haiku poetry, the "palinku" is a terse verse with a total of 17 syllables displayed on three lines. Unlike its earlier English-language forerunners, this concoction does not mandate the precise distribution of the syllables among the three lines, but does stipulate that each word in the poem be included in a palindromic phrase or sentence  (i.e. one that can be read either forwards or backwards). 

  To help the reader discern the origin of the lyrics, each palindrome, generally occupying one of the three lines of the poem, has been color-coded. Readers will note that we have been publishing verses of this type on the 17th of each month.

 You can readily view all our verses of this type if you proceed with a single click to our more encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE. (Or if you prefer, you can stay on this particular blogsite and look for the offerings for the 17th day of each month -- there are now more than 60 of these.)

NOV 16r, sleek Greek prefixes: DIA- or DI-

 

a) reprise from November 2020

NOV 16, sleek Greek prefixes: DIA- (and DI-)

Authors' Note: Click HERE, for your entertainment, to review a verse about diarrhea; and HERE's another one, about diaphoresis (sweating).

 Clicking HERE will introduce you to our entire collection of verses about the Greek prefixes!

b) Decorative Touches  

 fabric art by R.C.H., presented with thanks

NOV 15, 2023: patients and their maladies: horseshoe kidney

 

 

Authors' Note: Horseshoe kidney is a relatively common congenital malformation, occurring in 1/500 individuals. Also known as renal fusion, it results from the merging of two fetal kidneys in the pelvis during the stage of embryonic organ development and consequently failing to undertake their normal upward migration. Fortunately, health consequences are usually mild, if any; occasionally, one of the ureters becomes obstructed. The abnormal structure is often discovered incidentally during procedures, e.g. CT scanning or ultrasound, targeted at pelvic discomfort or unrelated symptoms (and of course, no normal kidneys are seen in their usual position).

Be sure to check out the multiple collections of verses on 'Patients and their Maladies" by proceeding to our full-service blog ,"Edifying Nonsense." CLICK HERE !

NOV 14r, pandemic poetry: social distancing

a) reprise from November 2020

NOV 14, pandemic poetry: social distancing

You can review these illustrated verses in a wider context by proceeding to 'Pandemic Poetry' on the full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense".

b) Decorative Touches (DTz)

 fabric art by R.C.H., presented with thanks

NOV 13, terminal (poetic) exclamation: KERPLUNK!

Authors' Note: Kerplunk is an onomatopoeic expression for the sound produced as a non-buoyant object suddenly sinks below the watery surface.

You can review our collection of poems on the topic of "Terminal Exclamation (Limerick Variations)" as it evolves on our more encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense"; click HERE.