ruddy turnstone at a narrow Carolina beach-strip littered with oyster-shells. This bird is a long distance migrator, roosting in the high Arctic. |
shorebird, seen near Toronto lakeshore: killdeer? |
turnstones (running), and oystercatcher |
A blogsite offering entertaining daily oddities since January 2020. There are now over fifteen hundred posts in these four years. Images -- photographic, computer-simulated and poetic -- are drawn from daily life as well as from poems and wordplay grouped by topic on our parent blog "Edifying Nonsense". The poetry displayed is all original (as are the song-lyrics), although portions evolved through rigorous editing on a collaborative website.
ruddy turnstone at a narrow Carolina beach-strip littered with oyster-shells. This bird is a long distance migrator, roosting in the high Arctic. |
shorebird, seen near Toronto lakeshore: killdeer? |
turnstones (running), and oystercatcher |
Editor's Note: As old age and aversion to cold weather have descended, we spend time whenever we can in the Carolina low-country. It is a cliché to say that winter is shorter in more southerly places, but that sometimes means that there are days when winter rages back in central Canada, but is not in evidence down here in lotus-land. On this particular day we learned from our weather-app that it would be snowy back home in Toronto, but would be a short-sleeve day in coastal Carolina.
Pelicans perched at creekside awaiting the returning fishers |
Tranquility near the center of suburban action |
Geometric restored oyster-bed at the Pitt St. Bridge park, Arthur Ravenel Bridge in background |
American white ibises in the marsh |
white ibis in flight |
cormorants on dock |
toothpick grasshopper on papyrus leaf |
Singable Satire
ORIGINAL SONG: "Mexican Hat Dance" (spoof) Allan Sherman, 1963. The original music, based on traditional Mexican dance-forms from the central and southern part of the country, is also known as "Jarabe Tapatío"; the music, unaccompanied by lyrics, is a typical repertoire item for mariachi.CLOTHING MOTH HAT-DANCE
Clothing moths, we are not like the fruit fly
(We admit with orange eyes they're a cute fly)
We shun froth, just ask any astute fly,
We eat sweaters and shirts, even hats.
Can't stand fruit, we eat dry, suits us better,
Like your suits; we don't fancy things wetter.
And we love old skin flakes from a shedder,
Like that guy who wears Mexican hats. Olé!
We can't stand foam or froth.
Our favorite food's 'whole cloth'.
The hats and suits you doff
Are a family meal for the moth.
As adults we don't need feed our offspring.
We just mate, and do things of that ilk.
Don't fly much, legs we lay,
Larvae hatch, and then they
Ravage cotton and woollens and silk.
Clothing moths! Live like toffs.
We're just snobs - Tineolas,
We play our violas,
While your old sombreros we doff.
Feel voracious? Please look you old meany
We're your dinner guests though we're quite teeny,
We'll infest your old box of 'linguini'.
But don't like your rendition of 'sauce'.
REPRISE:
We can't stand foam or froth.
Our favorite food's 'whole cloth'.
The hats and suits you doff
Are a family meal for the moth.
Now in closing... your sweaters are tatters,
The scraps literally filled up our platters.
We're engorged on keratinous matter.
Like your silk and wool suits
(We've ignored leather boots),
Left large holes in chapeaux made of cloth.
That's the work of the quirky clothes moth. Olé!
web-illustration |
The collection of informative verses dealing with 'HUMORISTS' SCURRILOUS TALK' can be found by proceeding to our full-service blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE!
Authors' Note: If you were going to sing a limerick, this modified 6-line verse (a 'limerrhoid'?) would be a particularly good one to sing to the tune of Gershwin's 'Anniversary Song'. Readers are invited to check out the possibilities for singing limerick verses with a variety of tunes on a blogpost on "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE.
Otherwise, in verse form, we hope that you enjoyed this submission. You can find 30 more on this topic in 5 collections on our full-service blog 'Edifying Nonsense'. Click HERE to start!
In this post, we continue with a novel form of poetic wordplay. Inspired by Japanese haiku poetry, this new form is used for a terse verse with a total of 17 syllables displayed on three lines. Unlike its classic Japanese analogue, 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 in English (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.
(Editors' Note): Concepts in this poem were also expressed in limerick format in the post of December 24.
Verses of this ilk have continued to accumulate. You can view them all at one swoop if you proceed with a single click to our more encyclopedic blog "Edifying Nonsense". Click HERE.
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.
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'. (Or, if you prefer, you can view them on Facebook in Giorgio's photo-albums).