I think that I shall never seize
upon a greater buzz than bees,
who note both breeze, precipitation,
who vote for trees at pollen station,
who flit flirt flit with every bloom
from egg to six leg until tomb,
whose sting is ne’er unsheathed in vain
anticipating double bane,
whose contribution to the hive
allows the common good to thrive
from imago to lowly drone,
who use communal telephone
to hive off jobs, who're honey prone
until by time they're overblown.
Praise Bee's sublime sense of direction
whose dancing spells spell swift detection
of nectar needed for a queen,
an animated jelly bean,
whose royal jelly therapy
from all chlorestorol stays free,
whose hexy super_flew_I_tease
so easily upon rhyme's breeze.
Praise be, for candle wax to light
night's dreams through which bright hope finds flight.
Most men lack insight, boorish bu[m]bble,
bees drone past Man's moan pride-ride stu[m]bble !
So, Man, take care ! disseminating
transgenic plants risks decimating
bee populations far and wide
which, victims, fall to pesticide.
No human verse may imitate
joy's Nature which we contemplate
with wonder more than bees, whose flight
joins use and joy to pure delight
despite man...kind who'd more destroy
each day as would spoiled child with toy...
Author notes
words in brackets retain two or more meanings
bumble/bubble stumble/stubble
pic 1 Manon Manon
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jasnakomendanovic/192905014/
Final pic
http://www.flickr.com/photos/drudesigns/2258170808/
See below for links to other J.R. parodies on Trees posted on A.P., Mr. Joyce Kilmer's original Trees, and other leaflet parodies ... Enjoy !
background annet planten
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mezze/2410513015/
Eggs http://allpoetry.com/poem/3285414
Bees http://allpoetry.com/poem/3285488
Tease http://allpoetry.com/poem/3287138
Trees' Breeze http://allpoetry.com/poem/3287184
Trees' Frogs http://allpoetry.com/poem/2533928
Trees-Son Able Poets http://allpoetry.com/poem/3287100
Trees
I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day,
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.
Joyce Kilmer 1888_1918
(For Mrs. Henry Mills Alden)
------
I'm Leery, Jock
I doubt that I shall ever view
Another football game with you.
You holler nonstop in my ear,
For every tackle makes you cheer,
Or bellow in a wounded way,
Depending on who makes the play.
I do not understand the charm
Of watching athletes doing harm.
Football’s played for fools like you,
But I have better things to do.
Francis HEANEY 19_20
Parody Joyce KILMER 1888_1918 Trees
Trees - A Golfing Parody
I think that I shall never see
a hazard rougher than an tree;
A tree o'er which my ball must fly
if on the green it is to lie;
A tree which stands that green to guard,
and makes the shot extremely hard;
A tree whose leafy arms extend
to kill the six iron shot I send;
A tree that stands in silence there,
while angry golfers rave and swear.
Irons were made for fools like me
who cannot ever miss a tree.
Author Unknown
Parody Joyce KILMER 1888_1918 Trees
Treed
I think that I shall never see
A poem nifty as a tree.
A tree whose rugged trunk seems meant
To speed a happy cat's ascent;
A tree that laughs at dogs all day
And serves up baby birds for prey;
A tree whose limbs are in the sky
Where clandestinely I can spy;
Until it does upon me dawn
It is a mile down to the lawn.
Poems are made by cats like me,
But only you can get me off this goddam stupid tree.
Henry BEARD – Parody Joyce KILMER
Joyce Kilmer’s Cat from POETRY FOR CATS
The Definitive Anthology of Distinguished Feline Verse
Tree’s sons ... Poets
I think that I shall never read
A tree of any shape or breed -
For all its xylem and its phloem -
As fascinating as a poem.
Trees must make themselves and so
They tend to seem a little slow
To those accustomed to the pace
Of poems that speed through time and space
As fast as thought. We shouldn't blame
The trees, of course: we'd be the same
If we had roots instead of brains.
While trees just grow, a poem explains,
By precept and example, how
Leaves develop on the bough
And new ideas in the mind.
A sensibility refined
By reading many poems will be
More able to admire a tree
Than lumberjacks and nesting birds
Who lack a poet's way with words
And tend to look at any tree
In terms of its utility.
And so before we give our praise
To pines and oaks and laurels and bays,
We ought to celebrate the poems
That made our human hearts their homes.
Tom DISCH for Joyce Kilmer
Parody Joyce KILMER 1888_1918 - Trees
Song of the Open Road
I think that I shall never see
A billboard as lovely as a tree.
Perhaps unless the billboards fall,
I'll never see a tree at all.
Ogden NASH 1902_1971
Parody Joyce KILMER 1888_1918 - Trees
Trees
A poem is much more than verse
As Joyce should know, both James
and Kilmer. Tom's unduly terse
when he dismisses trees. He names
Not the forms that verse can take
The villanelle, the sonnet;
And though he does a good rhyme make
He's bees within his bonnet.
Consider this, that trees do make
For human bodies - homes
And verse- at best - can only take
Space in a shelf of tomes.
So trees are poems, too but they
Are also utilitarian
Can we the same of poems say ?
Why, it would be Barbarian.
(c) Mallika Chellappa 2000
Parody Joyce KILMER - Trees
Fisher v. Lowe
A wayward Chevy struck a tree
Whose owner sued defendants three.
He sued car's owner, driver, too,
And insurer for what was due
For his oak tree that now may bear
A lasting need for tender care.
The Oakland County Circuit Court,
John N. O'Brian, J., set forth
The judgment that defendants sought,
And quickly an appeal was brought.
Court of Appeals, J. H. Gillis, J.,
Gave thought and then had this to say:
1) There is no liability,
Since No-Fault grants immunity,
2) No jurisdiction can be found
Where process service is unsound;
And thus the judgment, as it's termed
Is due to be, and is
Affirmed.
[1] AUTOMOBILES k251.13
Defendant's Chevy struck a tree,
There was no liability.
The No-Fault Act comes into play,
As owner and the driver say.
Barred by the act's immunity,
No suit in tort will aid the tree.
Although the oak's in disarray,
No court can make defendants pay.
[2] PROCESS k4
No jurisdiction could be found,
Where process service is unsound.
In personam jurisdiction
Was not even legal fiction
Where plaintiff failed to well comply
With rules of court that did apply.
J. H. GILLIS, Judge.
We thought that we would never see
A suit to compensate a tree.
A suit whose claim in tort is prest,
Upon a mangled tree's behest;
A tree whose battered trunk was prest
Against a Chevy's crumpled crest;
A tree that faces each new day
With bark and limb in disarray;
A tree that may forever bear
A lasting need for tender care.
Flora lovers though we three,
We must affirm the court’s decree.
Affirmed.
Parody Joyce KILMER 1888_1918 - Trees
Michigan appellate court decision 333 N.W. 2d 67
(Mich. App. 1983)
n.b. see also "In Re Love," 61 B.R. 558 (Bankr. S. D. Fla. 1986), parody
Treed
I do knot wish to ever see
another pun about a tree.
I wooden branch out on a limb
to root for such a shady whim.
It's just a fig[ment] of poor speech.
I'd rather [s]lumber at the beech,
or leaf through Penney's [cata]log,
or brush my faithful fir[ry] dog.
This poem bark[s] ! I am a sap !
I'll bough out now and take a nap.
Mary K. SULLIVAN 19_20 2001
Parody Joyce KILMER 1888_1918 - Trees
Rhyme to Spare
I know that I shall never be,
As old or graceful as a tree;
For I am just a passing guest
Here on this earth, to do a test.
If I do well, then I just may
See My Creator's Face one day.
I'm all the worse for wear and tear
No birds to decorate my hair.
I've been deluged by joy and pain,
Been broken and made whole again.
Though fool I am unlike the tree,
That Very God created me.
Maryse ACHONG 2001 Parody Joyce KILMER - Trees
http://www.tenderbytes.net/forum/poemsplace/archive1/fpoemsplacefrm1857f7.html?topicID=16.topic
Initials
I think I hardly ever see
Initials carved on fence or tree
Without recalling little Ted,
(Not lost, but gone, alas, ahead),
Who cut, with insufficient thought,
Initials where he didn’t ought.
His mother’s eldest sister, Kate,
Had given him, to celebrate
The seventh birthday of his life,
A many-bladed pocket knife,
And this attention to their lad
Made most of Edward’s parents glad.
But when his father found, next day,
His pencils sharpened right away
And ma had swept, on all her fours,
The whittled wood from several floors,
They sternly told their sone, ‘You can’t
Thus use the penknife of your aunt.
Employ it to some purpose, do,
Or we shall have it took from you.’
So Edward sat him, thinking, down,
And after study long and brown,
Bethought, ‘I might with profit use
My knife to label which is whose
Of all the miscellaneous lot
Of things my family has got.
There’s nothing gives me so the pip
As arguments on ownership.’
Now people suffer deep distress
Who find on objects they possess,
On hats and boots, on books and ties,
Initials of enormous size,
Especially if these are made
By penknife with a bluntish blade,
And Edward’s people, by his tricks
Were penetrated to their quicks.
His mother darned with might and main
To mend the damage, but in vain;
For patched and stitched she never so,
The lacerations seemed to grow,
While pa, who tried percussive force
Upon the problem at its source,
And doubtless left some pretty prints,
Found Edward was opaque to hints.
Of all the Smiths’ possessions far
The proudest was their motor-car.
They kept a special little shed
In which it went at night to bed,
With extra super double bars
To out-manœuvre burlars.
They kept it bright each day with wax,
And even gladly paid its tax,
While so much had it come to be
A member of the family
They suffered nothing to prevent
It going everywhere they went.
Now Ted had heard, in chance remarks,
Of cars abducted from their parks,
And, thinking that it might increase
The chances of the local police,
With open knife to garage sped
And on that motor’s outer tread,
Both back and front and off and near,
Incised intitials deep and clear.
Next day his pa and ma and he
Set out for Southport by the sea,
And pa, in packing, came upon
Fresh items with initials on.
This caused delay, and hence, a need
For consequently grater speed.
Small wonder as they seaward tore
Those sculptured outer covers wore
And, mid the traffic at its worst,
ALL SIMULTANEOUSLY BURST !
In vain there rose on every side
The awful screech of brakes applied;
That ordered highway had become
A sort of motor rugger scrum
With, in and underneath it all,
Poor Edward’s motor as the ball.
Those gentle readers are correct
Who think no person should expect
From such a tangle to contrive
To extricate himself alive
H.A. FIELD
Parody Joyce KILMER 1888_1918 - Trees and
Harry GRAHAM, Hilaire BELLOC - Ruthless Rhymes
Psi's
I think that I shall never see
A letter lovely as a psi,
Which thrusts its base below the line
And lifts its pitchfork for a sign.
A psi that may at some times wear
A bar or tilde in its hair -
That bears exponents gracefully
And intimately lives with phi.
Psi's can be writ by fools like me,
But only Greeks can make a
Steve CHEMICOFF 19_20 Parody Joyce KILMER 1888_1918 - Trees
Trees’ Sap Tapped
I think that I shall never hear
A poem lovelier than beer.
The stuff that Joe's Bar has on tap,
With golden base and snowy cap.
The stuff that I can drink all day
Until my mem'ry melts away.
Poems are made by fools, I fear
But only Schlitz can make a beer.
Author Unknown Parody Joyce KILMER 1888_1918 - Trees
Trunks
I think that I shall never see
A thing as lovely as a tree.
But as you see the trees have gone
They went this morning with the dawn.
A logging firm from out of town
Came and chopped the trees all down.
But I will trick those dirty skunks
And write a brand new poem called 'Trunks'.
Author Unknown Parody Joyce KILMER 1888_1918 - Trees
In a list
Comments
1 - 13 of 13
1 - 13 of 13
Adding your comment:
Hmmm... 
