Too far out all his life
And now he's dead.
Not waving but drowning
Is what he'd said.
Burma Shave.
The moon looks different
When he's up
Drink Man-Moth's tears
His hand's a cup
Burma Shave
drive, he sd, for
christ's sake, look
out where yr going.
Burma Shave.
[I know, it doesn't follow the rule but still it's pretty apt]
Bad people -- so intense
Good people-- totally dense
Out of the east
Comes a rough beast
Burma Shave
Friends, Romans
Brutus is honorable
Caesar is dead
My heart is in the coffin
Burma Shave
A dream deferred
Sags like a load
Alternatively
Might explode.
Burma Shave
4 is good (though I think I'd like it better if it didn't rhyme).
4 is good but it doesn't have the Burma-Shave form!!!
To roll cigars
And whip wet curds
Is finale of seem
For the king of ice-cream.
Burma Shave
7: Thank you! But all I was trying to do was rhyme!
8: Thank you! I've never been very good with poetic forms.
The best minds of my
Generation
Were destroyed;
Lamentation!
Burma Shave
Whether in the hospice
Or on putting green
Still each body
Has personal mien
Burma Shave
We real cool.
We jazz June.
We strike straight.
We die soon.
Burma-Shave.
The good are lame
Things suck for them
Rough beast slouches
To Bethlehem
Burma Shave
I considered posting 13 and rejected it as unsporting.
Auden has some already in Burma-Shave form:
Let us honour if we can
The vertical man
Though we value none
But the horizontal one.
Burma-Shave
and
I am beginning to lose patience
With my personal relations.
They are not deep
And they are not cheap.
Burma-Shave
Barbarians coming?
No they're not
A solution's what
We haven't got.
Burma-Shave
Nailed man to God
With original sin
Crow then smiled
His piratic grin
Burma Shave
WTF, I searched for one of my favorite poems by typing in the evocative phrase that I have always remembered, and it turns out John Darnielle wrote a song called that phrase when I wasn't looking.
USURA Τὸ καλόν
正名 la guerre
I cannot
Make it cohere
BURMA SHAVE
Cryptic ned's favorite poem is John Betjeman's "International Small Arms Traffic Blues".
What will suffice
You have to find
Poetry
Is in your mind
Burma-Shave
Consumer fads
Are mostly bad
You won't see
Revolution
On your TV
Burma Shave
Sis got bit
Life is shit
There's no boon
To whitey
On the moon
Burma Shave
The cry goes:
Quick, boys, gas!
We choke and die
For the upper class
Burma Shave
I took less traveled road
Or, well
I maybe didn't.
Hard to tell.
Burma-Shave
Should I get married
Meet her folks?
If we have kids
Play intellectual jokes?
Burma Shave
Three rings
Seven rings,
Nine rings.
One ring to in the darkness bind.
Burma shave.
You made me fear
I was a Jew
Daddy, you bastard
I'm through
Burma-Shave
Nothing beside remains,
boundless and bare.
"Look on my works,
ye Mighty, and despair!"
Oddly enough, "My Papa's Waltz", which is already written in the Burma-Shave format and addresses similar topics, does not mention the papa's need to shave.
Mean old Daddy
I killed you
Your fascist ways
Made me a Jew
Burma-Shave
Cold Sundays, early
Dad arose
No one said thanks.
Of love, who knows?
Burma-Shave
My fate I'll meet
Up in the sky
Not for a cause
Just love to fly.
Burma-Shave
38 - Oh, thank you! I was trying that last night and got stuck on "what did I know?"
New York in September
and all hope is lost
You fools don't remember
what the last big one cost
Burma Shave
A thrush in the
Syringa sings
"Fear and lust
Familiar things"
Burma-Shave
And I was muddling away at 45 (although completely different bits of it)
I'm impressed by how identifiable these are -- the only one not clear is 19, and I think I just don't know the origin.
I was thinking about 22 last night but got nowhere.
Our only health is the disease
Whose constant care is not to please
The chill ascends from feet to knees,
If to be warmed, then I must freeze.
Burma Shave.
Fucking's better
Than stained glass
The CoE
Can kiss my ass
Burma-Shave
Who hates this wall?
I bet it's Puck!
Think for yourself,
Neighborly schmuck.
Burma-Shave
To Innisfree
I'll up and go
And live in peace
With nine bean rows.
Burma-Shave
I never saw a moor.
I never saw the sea.
But I'm not Helen Keller.
They call me Emily.
Burma Shave.
How he rung upon the rein
Of a wimpling wing
Alliterátion
Is a tricky thing
Burma-Sháve
Two vast trunkless limbs
lie half buried in sand
Fate prevailed in the end
over this boastful man
Burma Shave
(alternatively)
Two vast trunkless limbs
protrude from the ground
Those who sing their own hymns
look how foolish they sound
Burma Shave
60: better?
Do not go gently
into that good night
Dad I'm not ready ment'lly
just keep fighting, all right?
Burma Shave
Not really! Your third and fourth lines are still too long, and the traditional five-line Burma Shave ad has rhyme scheme abcbd!
I really love the limerick version of 61:
There was an old father of Dylan,
Who was seriously, mortally illin'
"I want", Dylan said
"You to bitch till you're dead,
I'll be cheesed if you kick it while chillin'."
Stop shaking, horse!
Watch the falling snow.
I didn't forget
We have miles to go.
Burma Shave
62: Ideally, each line is two iambs, right?
Purple cow?
Didn't see.
Glad
It's not me.
Burma Shave
I do not like
Green eggs and ham
I do not like them
Sam iamb
Burma Shave
Purple cow?
Yes, I wrote
I'm sorry
Don't quote
Burma Shave
You and I
Made the usual pact.
Then you died,
Now I glide.
Pedantic comment
Errors noted
You can bet
That nosflow wrote it
Burma Shave
Big-shouldered city
Corrupt and loud
I think you're swell
Because you're proud
Burma-Shave
No dead horse
Cannot be flogged
A little more
At Unfogged
Burma Shave
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A pleasure dome decree;
But I prefer the version
That was sung by Geddy Lee.
Burma Shave
Intrusive bird
I hate him bad
Repetition drives me
ravin' mad.
Burma Shave
Losing isn't
Hard to master.
Keys; watch; house; cities,
No disaster.
Mene, Mene
Tekel u-Pharsin
Only Dan
Could do the parsin'
Burma-Shave
Can't let this thread pass without a link to my favorite Burma-Shave poem of all time.
Off topic: I am totally ignorant of both Texas and Heebie geography and would like to know that West Texas is far far away from Heebieville, yes?
One lamp, two lamps
Most have died
Who can remember
The midnight ride
Burma-Shave
Classic poems
Boiled down
Should end thusly:
"Fuck you, clown."
Burma-Fogged
You will forget
What I have said
You better remember
The hallowed dead
Burma-Shave
u-a-h-v-s-e-m-a-r-b
who
a)s w(e loo)k
aThe):1
ro
!a:
P D
(o
e.m)
, Burma-Shave;
I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats o'er vales and hills.
I took three tabs of acid
Now I dance with daffodils.
Burma-Shave
Cruel April month
less grim I wager
than poem's torture
on an English major
Burma Shave
House, child, almanac
stove, tears, grandmother.
Tears, house, stove, child
grandmother, alamnac.
Burma-Shave
Vienne la nuit
Sonne l'heure
Les jours s'en vont
Je demeure
Burma-Shave
Contre qui, Rose
tu te defends?
savoure plutôt
mon amour profond
Burma Shave
My first draft of 90 was actually vulgar and sexual, but it seemed too unlike Rilke (the vulgar part, that is).
The Highwayman
And Bess got shot
Tim the ostler:
What a twat
Burma-Shave
Gas, boys, quick!
Cough and faint
Dulce et
Decorum ain't
Burma shave
My friend Lilly joins in in email:
The road soon forks
You have to pick
Which way to go
Don't be a prick
Burma-Shave
God, and that should be girlhacker.com, not .net. I fail.
The mariner
Did suffer loss
Because he killed
The albatross.
Burma-Shave
Inspired by 87:
Art of losing
Ain't hard to master
Losing u (Write it!)
Looks like disaster
Burma-Shave
Reiter schmälert
des Sohns Unbehagen
Erlkönig hat
das Kind totgeschlagen
Burmashave
I too dislike
Its precious modes
But seek dreamed gardens
With real toads
Burma-Shave
My verse is precious
Your life too
And wild to boot
What will you do?
Burma Shave
Achilles wrath
And Helen's beauty
Hector's the guy
Who did his duty
Burma Shave
In Xanadu
Did Kubla Khan
That fucking Porlock!
Now it's gone
Burma Shave
The weather's awful
And I've been drunk
Oh Lana Turner
Please get up
Burma-Shave
Had a cold coming
Worst time of year
Camel men grumbling
Manger we're here.
Burma-Shave
103:
Troy's fate a lesson
let it stick
Beware of Greeks,
don't think with dick
Thank you 94:
Sister Steel
Brother Lead
Other poets
Turned up dead
Burma Shave
Many of these are incredibly good; I particularly liked 94.
Shot fired by bridge
and heard all over
Those farmers' heirs
now roll in clover
Burma Shave
Oh, I missed 101 before -- I was circling around that one and gave up. Nicely done.
Olaf was sent
to the great beyond
i'm a coward
you're not blond
Burma Shave
Oh captain, my captain,
what consternation
Your death has ruined
the celebration
Burma Shave
If you conform
to WASP ideals
you'll be a man
some day, for reals
Burma Shave
We rode slowly,
Death and me,
Saw stuff on the way
To eternity
Burma Shave
Goodnight moon
At the balcony
My date's got better
Astronomy
Burma-Shave
What good are names
To each of us
I'd love to be
Anonymous
Burma-Shave
Hmm. Maybe "Our love should be" instead.
Dying athlete
cleverest of chaps
departs before his
15 minutes elapse
Burma Shave
My mistress has
Such ugly hair
And yet, by heav'n,
I think her rare
Burma-Shave
Balloons were charming
On our date;
War's alarming
Makes all late.
Burma-Shave!
That's my last Duchess
On the wall
You'd better not
Provoke me, doll
Burma-Shave
Flesh is mortal
I'm moving on
A Byzantine
Automaton
Burma-Shave
126 is amazing.
121 is pretty great too.
Some others are probably great too, but I need to go read the explanations on Standpipe's blog
Yo, wretched refuse
Wherever you've been
The chick with the lamp
Says come on in.
Burma Shave
Big and green
Europe, please
Gimme all
Your refugees
Burma-Shave
I think mine should count more, as I did it for the FYC thread too.
129, 130. Wow. Check out those timestamps.
That's my last duchess
Pretty, but
If truth be told
Kind of a slut
Burma Shave
Had we but time
We'd court and flirt
But we'll soon die
So lift your skirt
Burma Shave
Babe's a boy
Woman's old
Catching shrieks
In cups of gold
Burma Shave
134 goes in the small subset "Might actually have helped sell Burma-Shave."
Philip Larkin:
You're going to die
Try not to whine
Religion is
A waste of time
Burma-Shave
Miniver yearned
For Camelot
He got depressed
And drank a lot
Burma Shave
It matters not
How strait the gate
I am the master
Of my fate
Burma Shave
Buzz-saw snarls
Off comes the hand
Those not dead
Go on as planned
Burma-Shave
If I should die
Let my body be
Six feet of
English colony
Burma Shave
You're sorta like
a summer's day
but better in
a durable way
Cat-foot fog
On city watch
Moves off with
its silent crotch
Burma-Shave.
Of rock & roll
Was this city built
We sing it proud
And without guilt
Burma-Shave
Is 118 "Sad Steps"? Pretty oblique if so.
125 and 126 are great.
She like a tent
in summer swings
and isn't love
like pulling strings
Burma-Shave
Der Engel stark
Die Nächte lang
Jetzt widersteh
dem Liebesdrang
Burma Shave
Be / Not be
A good question!
What's after death
I'm only guessin'
Booker T.
And W.E.B.
Re: work and learning
Don't agree.
Burma Shave
Juno got pissed
and burned his home
he ditched his chick
and built our Rome
Burma-Shave
Bin so in Lieb'
Zu ihr versunken
Als hätt' ich von
Ihrem Blut getrunken
Burma Shave
Fell into the State
My wet fur froze
Got washed out
Of the turret with a hose
Burma Shave
Noiseless spiders
seek with silk
OKcupid:
"soul seeks ilk"
Burma shave.
His apple eyes
With meaning rife
Behold you, and
You change your life.
Burma-Shave
You fit in me
like hook in eye
a fish hook
an open eye
Burma Shave
The Wikipedia article for Burma Shave suggests that the poem structure is a lot more flexible w/r/t rhymes than I had thought.
Easy living
Fish are jumping
In summertime
Big brother something
Burma-Shave
Also, IIRC, number of lines. But still.
"The night is starry,
The cold stars blue."
But this is sadder:
I don't have you.
Burma-Shave
Dein goldenes Haar
Margarete
Dein aschenes Haar
Sulamith
Burma-Shave
His picture changes
He doesn't
Except
When
Burma Shave
161: Yes, I was going to point that out before, but I didn't want to out-pedant neb.
Gucci Gucci
Louis Louis
Fendi Fendi
Aw, phooey
Burma-Shawn
Greek boy meets girl
in urn time-freeze
Eternal Beauty's
('s Truth) cock-tease.
Burma-Shave
Monks are certain
Techs have doubts
9 billion reached
The stars wink out
Burma-Shave
In a station
Of the metro
Faces
On a black bough
Burma Shave
171 We can do whatever we want Burma Shave
See the rules
Then wave
Then buy
Burma Shave
Roman slaves
For freedom fight
No Spartacus but
Comedy tonight
Burma-Shave
Free verse
Breaks a sweat
Playing tennis
Without a net
Burma Shave
Struck two snakes
Became a chick
Struck two snakes
Grew a dick
Burma Shave.
Be still and dally,
Then by and by
We'll empty loins
And bruise the thigh.
Burma-Shave.
Sweetly moaning
Sans merci
This belle has coldly
Rung for me
Burma-Shave
Dark and Satanic
Or bright and green
Arrows and chariots
A Christian dream
Burma-Shave
The British Army:
Splendid men
But even better:
Gunga Din
Burma-Shave
I'm so goddamn illiterate, I recognize maybe 5 of these.
Or, you could entirely replace "Burma Shave" with "Gunga Din".
Shameless adapted (some would say stolen) from Alan Isler's twenty-line Paradise Lost:
Christ on the cross
Saved us all
He pleased the boss
Lucky fall!
Burma-Shave
I had a close shave
In Burma once
I shot an elephant
And felt like a dunce
Burma shave
In middle life
She taught me well:
To get to heaven
You go through hell.
Burma Shave.
Eric Blair before becoming Orwell.
Even if it wasn't, I'm amused. And thanks for reminding me what I was thinking of, Moby.
I'm not judging you
I'm judging me
My Burma Shave
Your Burma Shave
My Burma Shave
Just getting to see these. Awesome! (194 has me singing.)
These are making me very happy (almost as happy as I was to here R/ta Dove speak today, which was AMAZING).
I like big butts
I cannot lie
Plus royalties
Piled to the sky
Burma Got Back
Old McDonald
Had a Farm
On that farm:
Sheep
Burma Shear
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed,
That face was as smooth as a river of glass
Thanks to Burma-Shave!
198: I don't know how high the royalties piled in the day, but by 1999 Sir Mix had come far enough down in the world that he played the campus Halloween party at my school. After a few songs, the neighboring exurb where Charles Schwab lives started making complaint calls, and they shut down the show long before the steatopygia everyone was waiting for.
Financial troubles
Aren't that funny
Wish I'd filled
Those butts with money
Burma Shave
Call the barber
Of grands visages
And bid him whip
In special cups
Burma Shave
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling or
Burma Shave
If thoughts of death
Should disconcert
Know part of Greece
Is English dirt
Burma-Shave
Half a league
Rode the six hundred
Honor the charge
Noble six hundred
Burma Shave
165 made me cackle. I had a joke with friend who was to read a German passage at our wedding that he was going to get up there and cheerily start reciting that poem.
A load of dawns
Gets me relig
You silver fox
I love you bridge
Burma Shave
Speech ready
To the circus he sped
Voice steady
To the clown, he said:
Burma Shave
Is this a dagger
I see before me?
Come, let me
Burma Shave
Life is
But a
Five o'clock
Shadow
Burma shave
I have it not
I see it still
With phantom daggers
One cannot kill
Burma-Shave
Whan that Aprille
With shoures soote
The droghte of March
Had perced to the roote
Burma Shave
Sam's lust for gold
In the midnight sun
No match for cold
Cooked him well-done
Burma Shave
209: I know of friends of friends who met in a Kierkegaard reading group and, before their wedding, spent months scouring for any Kierkegaard passage possibly appropriate for a reading. I don't think they found one.
What was your actual passage? I admit we used "Corona" at ours.
Off topic: I am totally ignorant of both Texas and Heebie geography and would like to know that West Texas is far far away from Heebieville, yes?
It's in the same general part of the state, but not particularly close. About 150 miles away. Confusingly, the town of West, Texas is actually nowhere near the region of the state known as "West Texas."
I just learned that there's a part of Texas associated with German culture, and now it turns out there's also a city in Texas associated with Czech culture.
To talk of stars
In cap and gown
May get applause
But fuck you, clown
Burma-Shave
Wearing purple
Stupid hat
Not yet old
Might get fat
Burma Shave
Gabby B. nicely tying things together.
Carnal apple
Buning moon
Love's a journey
Burning poon
Burma Shave
Can I not save One
From the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see
or seem
Burma shave?
(Not that anyone would ever make that typo!)
Marry you?
Oh, I suppose,
Since I can't have
The one I chose.
Burma-Shave
Shoulda been "awesome poon" anyhow.
Westward
The course of empire
Takes its way;
The fifth act
Burma Shave
Now that I've read the whole thread, I confess that I "get" less than half of these but most of them make me laugh anyway.
Yeah, I hardly recognize any of the poems.
A mouse's fate
Is much like man's;
What's built gets crushed.
So much for plans.
Burma-Shave
(Throwing a bone to my fellow recognizers of few poems, there.)
I'm stumped by several (150, 157), and I spent six years getting certified in this stuff.
Knock, knock
Who's there?
Interrupting knave
Interrupting kn---
Burma Shave
buffalo bill's
breathed his last breath
i hope you're happy
mister death
burma shave
A Elbereth Gilthoniel
I need to make up Elvish words
silivren penna míriel
To entertain my fans, the nerds
Burma Shave
218.b: Mohn und Gedächtnis: a bold choice! Ours was from Rilke's seventh letter to a young poet.
Aquatic mammal
And a son of toil
Tricked the bivalves
Now they boil
Burma-Shave
Positive thinking,
Gemlike flame;
Robbing Pater to paw Peale:
Such a shame.
Burma Shave
No poem's lovely
As the tree
That this billboard
Used to be.
Burma-Shave
A kid goes to kill
A beast quite vicious
The words sound real
But they're fictitious
Burma-Shave
Because I would not
Stop for death
He stopped for me
W.T.F.
Burma Shave
Do you greet
Each new poem
With some dismay
It could be worse
Axe Body Spray
Because we've got
The Maxim gun
The Empire ends up
Bloody fun
Burma Shave
Let's make that 'no'
On second thought.
You woo by dark,
You lose a lot.
Burma-Shave
Rich Richard Cory
Idol of downtown
Went home
Shot fired
Burma Shave
She said "I hate"
[Cruel fate!
Can I be saved?]
"not you"
Burma Shave
Not many rules
The poems are
Incessant
A bit like playing
Mornington Crescent
Burma-Shave
There once was a man
from Verdun.
There once was a man
named Dave
Burma Shave
I'm stumped by several (150, 157), and I spent six years getting certified in this stuff.
157 is "The Death of the Ball Turret Gunner". I don't know 150.
Those sex-crazed señoras
Cause bad situations
But Don Juan's surprise ending
Was Byron's expiration
Burma Shave
I confess I find the metrically strict offerings more charming.
Special Veronica Mars-inspired edition:
Hope springs eternal
In the breast
Life sucks and then
You lay to rest
Burma Shave
I haven't really gotten the hang of the "proper" form. I've mastered wasting this evening though.
I like 125.
I like a lot of these, actually. And I'm kind of frustrated by how many I can't identify.
255: So! I have a midcentury gap. I had to Google 150: "The Silken Tent," a Frost sonnet I didn't know either.
MILDEW SAID
MAINTENANCE
I'M IN SHOCK
I KNOW ITS MOLE
BUT HE JUST COCK
BURMA-SHAVE
I saw the figure
Five in gold
That damned Demuth
My idea stole
Burma Shave
Waxwing on
The window pane
Ashen fluff
That bird is slain
Burma Shave
Essear was notoriously lax in the college community as regarded his morning ablutions, however, I did introduce him to a shaving cream several cases of which I had had the foresight to bring with me when I arrived. The sight of him clean-shaven caused something of a shock on the first day of classes but after people got used to it everyone agreed that it was a significant improvement and, though most people didn't know about my role in what it's not an exaggeration to term essear's transfiguration, he of course did, and the whole episode raised both myself and my shaving cream in his esteem. Perhaps a little too much, for it can't be denied that his mentioning it in this context is rather jarring, it having apparently nothing to do with the striking image that precedes it.
Nosflow is in the vicinity of a very loud amusement park.
Man alive! I'd better get to sleep.
God, I might as well be, what with my neighbors.
W/lfs/n, B., American scholar, 269; nos-flow, myxomycete that bred in the trunks of extinct mammoths and is thought to have hastened their phylogenetic end, 272.
Unfogged, a once-fashionable eclectic web magazine, Now a cold and desolate spot of no importance but still remembered by a certain balding man in a basement, not in the text.
.I'm dead," said Joe,
"But dry your eyes,
Get off your ass
And organize"
Wobbly Shave
Oh wrangling schools
Have none the wit
To work out fever's
Really shit
Burma Shave.
Go back to bed
Unruly Sun
I'm trying to get
Some loving Donne
Burma Shave.
I met with Wavell,
Said to him,
"Our hope of winning's,
Frankly, Slim"
Burma Star.
He shoots like Jordan!
Flies like Dumbo!
That's why we all want
To sex Mutumbo
Burma Shave.
In hazel wood
I fished a girl
To catch her now
I walk the world
Burma Shave
With a wild surmise
All his men
Watched silent
On a peak in Darien
Burma Shave
(This Boston thing is freaking me out)
Celia dazzles
In lace and mink
But secretly
Her shit doth stink
Burma Shave
Her two lips are
Copper wire
Kissing her is
Electrical fire
Burma Shave.
I am black
But also me
This is my theme
For English B
Burma Shave
The heavens took
My Annabel back
Now I'm a
Necrophiliac
Burma Shave
Winter afternoon
Cathedral tune
Hold your breath,
Here comes Death.
Burma Shave.
My dad is senile
"I love you," he said
Now I laugh
He's dead! Dead!
Burma Shave
282: Been taking counsel from Ogden Nash?
Love 286...ahem,
I pour'd wine down his throat
Which (by common consent)
Was no more than his due
Who brought good news from Ghent
Burma Shave
Plop! Fall the plums.
There are still three
on the tree;
won't some man
come marry me?
Burma Shave
We're not so strong
Our health is failing
But we ain't dead yet
So let's go sailing.
Burma Shave
Lancelot sang
"Tirra lirra"
Shadows? Boring.
Broke my mirror.
Burma Shave
yes, Eggplant, see now who is who, there is one more solution to your ticket, to let it expire, after all what's money and what's the pleasure of meeting the bullying a/holes? spare your nerves, you have my sympathy
'Murica, self,
atom, dew, grass.
Multitudes, you've
quite a cute ass.
Burma-Shave
300!
The sea of faith
Has now withdrawn
All certitude
And peace are gone
Burma-Shave
This moonlit beach
Is sure romantic
Too bad about
The armies' antics
Burma-Shave
Long line of spray
Bright girdle furled
And you, my love:
Ah, dreamlike world!
Burma-Shave
The clash by night
A punk-rock treat
Joe Strummer riffs
And reggae beat
Burma-Shave