a vice

[truepenny]

I have a weakness for Little Willies (invented by Harry Graham), of which the classic example is:

Willie saw some dynamite,
Couldn't understand it quite,
Curiosity seldom pays,
It rained Willie seven days.

If you, like me, love sick humor and bad puns

(Willie, in a rage insane,
Threw his head beneath a train,
All were quite surprised to find,
How it broadened Willie's mind.)

there are collections posted here, here, and here. There's a good deal of overlap, but a couple non-repeaters on each page. And if anybody knows of or finds a better collection

(Willie and three other brats,
Ate up all the Rough-On-Rats,
Papa said, when Mama cried,
"Don't worry, dear, they'll die outside.")

please let me know!

Comments

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

One I remember:

Little Willie was a chemist
Little Willie is no more
For what he thought was H₂O
What H₂SO₄.

(For those who don't remember high school chemistry class, H₂O is, of course, water, and H₂SO₄ is sulfuric acid.)

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

They look like macabre versions of clerihews.

Or the kinds of things Edward Gorey wrote and illustrated.

Do you know Neil Gaiman and Stephen Jones' twisted poetry anthology NOW WE ARE SICK published by Dreamhaven?

My favorite light verse/satirical poet, though, is Felicia Lamport, who passed away in 1999. She published three collections--SCRAP IRONY, CULTURAL SLAG, and LIGHT METRES--all with illustrations by Gorey and brimming with her biting wit and inventive wordplay.

[vass]

Neat!

I knew these as Ruthless Rhymes.

One of my favourites is:

Little Willy from the mirror
Sucked the mercury all off,
Thinking, in his childish error,
It would cure his whooping cough.

Mrs Johnson, Willy's mother,
Smartly said to Mrs Brown,
"'Twas a chilly day for Willy
When the mercury went down."
(I don't remember the author.)

Dorothy Dunnett published a lot of a related genre, obituary verse, in one of her Johnson Johnson mysteries, 'Roman Nights' ('Dolly and the Starry Bird').

[vass]

Oh my gosh. That was Neil Gaiman?

I read excerpts from that in an anthology of parodies once. I loved it.

Hush, hush,
Nobody cares,
Christopher Robin has
           Fallen
                 Down
                     Stairs.

[vass]

*checks out the links*
Oh, it's there. And I got half a line wrong.
Cool.