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I have been experimenting with the Thoroughew, a form derived from the Clerihew. It consists of four lines, the first three of which follow the well-known rules of the Clerihew (well-known to those who know them). The fourth, which rimes with the third, ends with an anagram of the subject's name. The subjects may be literary or political figures, as many of these are, or any other sort of public figure. Thus --

Allen Tate
when on a date
was unfailingly gallant.
Ale talent.

Mark Strand
gave himself a hand.
Studied art.
Drank smart.

Edgar Allan Poe
never had enough dough
but had plenty of valor
and an edge, a pallor.

Allen Ginsberg?
"Ginsberg, Schminsberg,"
cried Harvard Hall.
"Beginner's gall!"

Ivor Winters
burst into splinters
when textbooks declined to use
his intro views.

William Wordsworth
failed to see the absurd's mirth.
"Enough of this hers-and-his-dom!
I'll throw raw wisdom!"

Lawrence Ferlinghetti,
had he met the yeti,
might have said something obscene
like, "We'll frig the nectarine."

Harold Bloom
emptied many a room
with Freudian hydrochloral.
Oh bold moral!

William Jay Smith
contains his own myth
and means it. No, really:
What am I, Jim? Silly?

Jerry Elijah Brown
Having crossed out another noun
Hid the key to his memoir
In a hi born jewelry jar.

Quentin Vest
lay down to rest,
having sent
Steven Quint.

Gerald Ford
absolutely adored
hauling his gall bladder
up and down the frog ladder.

Spiro T. Agnew
delivered the swag, knew
how to kow-tow, and would ultimately appear to belong
somewhere between rig tapes now and wiretap song.

George W. Bush
would do well not to push
his luck with his old amigo
that brew gush ego.

William Bennett
will return in a minute.
We shall all have our fill
of that mean netwit Bill.

Imelda Marcos
survived the tetrarchus
and lived like a whore
in miasmal decor.

Gary Condit
would like to get beyond it.
Try the trash compactor,
dying actor.

Pat Robertson.
Well, even if the job hurts, son,
one can always foresee
a porn star to be.

Ian Fleming
had to give up swimming.
"Sad job, men.
Me final gin."

George Harrison
suffered by comparison
but was far from a zero
as Ringo's gear hero.

Andy Warhol,
should he decline to come back as a narwhal,
may find himself inexorably drawn
to the name Harold Yawn.

Lao-Tsu
withdrew.
Did you notice?
A lotus.


Note: The Clerihew was of course invented by Edmund Clerihew Bentley (1875-1956). The first (and still, perhaps, the best) Clerihew:

Sir Humphrey Davy
Abominated gravy.
He lived in the odium
Of having discovered sodium.

W. H. Auden wrote many Clerihews. The foremost living practitioner is Henry Taylor.

Copyright 2002 by David Vest. All rights reserved.