“Ballad of the Bard” (or, “Will Hath-not-a-way with Anne”)
Will’s newlywed wife was distraught,
So A LOVER’S COMPLAINT she upbrought:
“I do WHAT YOU WILL,
AS YOU LIKE IT and still
Thy rod and Falstaff comfort naught.”
“If thy MEASURE FOR MEASURE’s oblique,
‘Tis thy four plays before that be weak
‘Spite a fine frontispiece
For the RAPE OF LUCRECE.
“
Then she brought his bare bodkin to cheek.
“To be or to not!” she did scream.
All the HAMLET could hear it would seem:
“A pill of grim passion
Is not what I fashion
To be A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM!
“
Their TWELFTH NIGHT of marriage drew nigh:
“Something Moor,” said dear Anne with a sigh.
“If thou shew me the skill
Thou possesseth with quill,
What a merry young wife would be I!”
“THE BALLAD OF WALLY & MAUD”
A robotics researcher named Wally
Built a robot bombshell dubbed “Dolly”–
Got a beautiful baud–
But his jealous wife, Maud,
Reduced all its hubris to “Ollie.”
Then to make Wally jealous, Maud bought
A robot called “Rod Megawatt.”
She’s so hot for her Rod,
Wally queried of Maud:
“Just what hath Rod got that I’ve not?”
“EINE KLEINE NACHT FUGUE”
Sprach die junge Frau Bach to her spouse:
“Ich krank of your fugueing heraus;
Keep your fugueing herein
Und maybe you’ll find
Some more kleinen Bachs in den Haus!”
****
Frescobaldi, a Barber for Boyce,
Shoeck the Bloch with his Weill singing voice.
Des Prez he’ll move on
And not Karajan
Cutting hair so Carulli with noise.
****
My Moroccan friend, Benjam, was smitten
By wanderlust, thus I have written:
“Segovia Spain,
Khachaturian train,
‘Ere long you’ll be, Benjam, in Britten.”
****
An arranger from old Dusseldorf
Was a rude, intellectual dwarf.
When his work was refused
He stood and accused:
“You can’t Telemann to fugue Orff!”
****
A priest with no sense of propriety
Had odd ways of expressing his piety;
Holy wine much he drank,
To his knees he then sank
Sacrificing to God his sobriety.
“WAGNER’S RUNG CYCLE”
Though Herr Wagner was no longer young,
His cullions were hardly well hung;
Seems he’d emptied his bladder
While poised on a ladder
And slipped off the Gotterdammerung.
© Kathleen A. Martin