Peter Prasad's Blog: Expletives Deleted - Posts Tagged "campaign-zen"

There are strange things done in the midnight sun By the men who moil for gold; The Artic trails have their secret tales That would make your blood run cold; The Northern Lights have seen queer sights, But the queerest they ever did see Was that night on the marge of lake Lebarge I cremated Sam McGee.

And so begins ‘The Cremation…” by Robert Service.

In a bygone era without benefit of newspaper print, folks preferred to listen for news, yarns, stories and tall tales spent near warmth after chores and before exhaustion.

And so our imaginations burned, soaked in dime novels and penny dreadfuls, before comic books and radio, when we braved the monster in the machine and as we found all to familiar in ourselves. That was 130 years ago.

Since then, well…
So rekindle, relight, remember, re-evoke and tell more jokes, present company excepted. On’Ya readers.

We're losing one of our most cherished American traditions -- the right to write beer-barrel poetry that skewers our elected leaders.

Doggerel has been with us since the Middle Ages. Says Wikipedia:

Doggerel is poetry that is irregular in rhythm and in rhyme, often deliberately for burlesque or comic effect. The word is derived from the Middle English dogerel, probably a diminutive of dog. In English it has been used as an adjective since the fourteenth century and a noun since at least 1630. Appearing since ancient times in the literatures of many cultures, it is characteristic of nursery rhymes and children's song.

In my family, we have a history of criticizing the King. John Appleton did it in 1730 and was promptly jailed in Colonial Boston. Now, with the 2016 election & silly season upon us, I offer this:

Ted Cruz Burns An Ounce To Announce

Vote Ted Cruz and the country we love is going to lose
He’s a busted Texan teapot who burns a very short fuse
So what’s all the fuss? His campaign leaks tons of puss.
He’s funded by the venture capital community
His wife writes the checks, ain’t that a lunacy
Anti-homo, he has his hate speech down pat
Anti-healthcare, voters stand in bread lines
While the Cruz and fat cats are doing just fine.
Anti-Obama, in the White House he’ll go all war
Thinking Herr Leader must have the loudest roar.
What do they put in the water down Texas way?
Arsenic and lead when a drop of tequila will do
He’s another moralizing murderer of democracy
A born-again pundit of the theocracy
When you draw the curtain and put your ballot in the box
Imagine candidate Cruz severe with the Republican pox.
Ted Cruz for the White House – oh boo-hoo
See you at the Alamo – oh ho-ho

For more campaign doggerel, please read Campaign Zen: http://www.amazon.com/Campaign-Zen-Pe...