kate rothwell

The Emperor of Ice-Cream Call the roller of big cigars, The muscular one, and bid him whip In kitchen cups concupiscent curds. Let the wenches dawdle in such dress As they are used to wear, and let the boys Bring flowers in last month's newspapers. Let be be finale of seem. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream. Take from the dresser of deal, Lacking the three glass knobs, that sheet On which she embroidered fantails once And spread it so as to cover her face. If her horny feet protrude, they come To show how cold she is, and dumb. Let the lamp affix its beam. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream The New England middle-class's TS Eliot. No Latin or fancy pants education needed and yet, like TS's stuff, you end up with......huh? WTF ? I've had that phrase stuck in my head all night like a song fragment. "The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream" Question du jour: Is this A. better than B. worse than or C. about the same as having the lyric...

Boy 1's English assignment: write a bad love poem. This took him minutes and minutes to create, so be nice. I hope the formating on that second to last (my favorite) verse shoes up. ...er, shows up, too. Happy Valentine's Day. The Split Personality Sonnet Oh most Beloved and Adored, I hang upon your every word, And when thine lips do part I listen, As out from your mouth words do glisten And as you rant and spew forth drivel, I sit and sob and quickly shrivel, For your harpy’s screech pierces my ears, So I must down twelve cans of beers And when your heavenly visage appears Before my eyes I’m moved to tears At your hygiene and your devotion As deep and dark as the blue ocean O the very thought of you Makes the sky seem far less blue You are ugly and stupid and cheap You molded, putrid, rotting heap Ah Cupid’s arrow hath struck home The seeds of Love planted in my loam I sit and wait beside my phone To hear your beautiful du...

Aya's response to the my post about kids' songs: I rebuked the "Ring around the rosy" song? Huh? I have the file of you singing the nuthouse song, if you'd like an MP3 or wave file of it.* I think I ended up tracing the nuthouse song back to a 1926 parlor song called “The Lunatic’s Lullaby,” created by Leslie Moore, Johnny Tucker & Edgar Leslie. Say the word and I'll send the parlour-song lyrics to you... Or a condensed version of my research on children's songs, for that matter.*** So the Ring Around The Rosy thing might have been my imagination. We'll get back to you on it after she does some more research. Snopes isn't on the case. We have to dig deeper. Aya (who's visiting) suggests starting with mudcat.org site, which looks like a lovely time-waster. Random lyric look up! ___________________________ * No, Thanks. ***Yes, please.

1. The expert has spoken: My husband has been diagnosed as a "whackbutt." That's Dr K M-T, addressing the fact that Mike headed off to work even though the world is composed of ice, snow and wind. 2. The proper response to the weather: A fire in the fireplace and no intention of leaving the house unless it's to get more wood. The boys and I are sane. 3. Poetry corner: Nose as long as a telephone wire--it could be a reference to the Pinocchio syndrome. I do like Beth's version. Anyone else have more variations of the lines to liar liar pants on fire? Do you know that thing about how "Ring around the Rosy" is about the plague? Not so, says Aya who was taking a course in that sort of thing at BU. Talk about shattered dreams. We're going to have to get her to guest blog and blast all of our favorite stories about childhood ditties. Aya owes us. We sang the nuthouse song to her ** as well as our mother's favorite Wobbly lullabies,*** and she might...