May 9, 2007

Murmur at the poetry slam.

Um, hi. Is this thing on? Okay, um. So the name of my poem is “Murmur” and it was inspired by something called “reduplication.” That’s when you have a word that’s made of a repeated syllable or word. Like “Bonbon” or “Couscous.” Okay, so um… So I’m just going to read it now. *ahem*

Murmur.

Zsa zsa slapped a cop
who pulled her over in La-La land.
She left a booboo on his face
From all the bling-bling on her hand.

Dance the cha cha
Or the can can
Shake your pom pom
To Duran Duran

Bora Bora is an island
Walla Walla’s in the US.
The UN’s Boutros Boutros-Ghali
used to live near the Suez.

When you say night-night to your baby
there’s a fifty-fifty chance
That she may have gone wee-wee
Or made a doo-doo in her pants.

Mahi Mahi is a fish.
Add some tartar, it wouldn’t hurt.
Couscous makes a great side dish.
Have a bonbon for dessert.

Lulu wore a muumuu
cocoa-colored like her friend’s.
Fifi said it’s too matchy-matchy
But they’re buddy-buddy ‘til the end.

The Mamas and the Papas
Made “Monday Monday” a #1 hit.
Hindsight being 20/20,
Maybe the band shouldn’t have quit.

Mork said “Nanu Nanu.”
Luke rode on a taun-taun’s back.
Ralphie wants a BB gun,
and Mimi’s makeup’s out of whack.

“Knock knock” began the joke.
Lulu asked, “Who’s there?”
But the rim-shot came too early
on the tom tom and the snare.

Sirhan Sirhan shot RFK
It was a dum-dum move, that dork.
They would have sent him to Sing-sing
If he had done it near New York, New York.

“Ha ha” said Jerry Seinfeld
watching the “Yadda yadda” show.
Tsk tsk! Laughing at your own show’s jokes
is a TV writer no-no.

The dada artist drew a yo-yo
Being played with by a tsetse fly
Who was standing on a putt-putt course.
Nobody understood why.

The dodo birds have gone extinct.
Tut tut, there are no more living.
“Gobble gobble” says the turkey.
“Have a vegetarian din-din this Thanksgiving.”

Peter Pan was a goody goody
who lived in Never Never Land.
But now he’s on the wah-wah pedal
playing in a hard rock band.

It’s the same old same old with these rhymes.
And so it’s almost time to say bye-bye.
I’m running out of things to write. Um…
A sailor says “Aye aye.”

Choo choo goes the train.
Vroom-vroom goes the Corvette.
Oh no, this is my worst rhyme of all.
Now they’ll never link to me from boingboing.net.

Comments

hear hear!

Hear hear! :)

Tsk, tsk.

Somewhere in the Ogden Nash discography he did
a poem about a Tsar who got bitten by a tse-tse
fly, caught beri-beri and eventually moved to
Walla Walla. And retitled himself the Tsar-Tsar.

Tsk, tsk.

Somewhere in the Ogden Nash discography he did
a poem about a Tsar who got bitten by a tse-tse
fly, caught beri-beri and eventually moved to
Walla Walla. And retitled himself the Tsar-Tsar.

Just so you know, the band Duran Duran is named after the villain from the movie Barbarella.

I know people that call policemen “po-po.”

In the spirit of duplicatability-ness, I offer the following:


Pago Pago

Chug-chug goes the choo-choo
Ching-ching goes the hoo-hoo

Author, author.
Arthur, Arthur!

Wee-wee, pee-pee
A mi, mi Mimi

Circus-Circus
Boutros Boutros

Ghali…GollY!

There is a great children’s book called Double Trouble in Walla Walla by Andrew Clements that uses a lot of reduplication. It is a really fun read.

A lot of town names in Australia use reduplication. You can see a list here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Double-named_places_in_Australia

(Could lead to a whole new poem set in Australia..)

i had an internal monologue singing these as the lyrics to a calopso song while i read them. t’was enjoyable, thanks!

alloy, alloy… very, very good in Thai. hmmm, now I’m not sure if that only refers to food.