T.S. Eliot anagrams to “Toilets”. Francis Heaney therefore uses that theme to parody Eliot’s best-known poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, as the opening poem of the book:
Let us go then, to the john,
Where the toilet seat waits to be sat upon
Like a lover’s lap perched upon ceramic;
Let us go, through doors that do not always lock,
Which means you ought to knock
Lest opening one reveal a soul within
Who’ll shout, “Stay out! Did you not see my shin,
Framed within the gap twixt floor and stall?”
No, I did not see that at all.
That is not what I saw, at all.
To the stall the people come to go,
Reading an obscene graffito.
We have lingered in the chamber labeled “MEN”
Till attendants proffer aftershave and mints
As we lather up our hands with soap, and rinse.
And so it goes, throughout the Holy Tango of Literature: anagram the poet’s name, use that as the theme for parodying their best known poem. Here are some of the openings:
e. e. cummings: “nice smug me”
nice smug me lived in a pretty hip town
(with up so noses snobs looking down)
saks moomba vong prada
i wore my mesclun i ate my uggs
William Shakespeare: “Is a sperm like a whale?”
Shall I compare thee to a sperm whale, sperm?
Thou art more tiny and more resolute:
Gerard Manley Hopkins: “Kong ran my dealership”
I hired last summer someone simian, King
Kong of Indies islands, fifty-foot-fierce Gorilla, out of hiding
Chaucer, Dorothy Parker, Frost, Whitman, Gwendolyn Brooks… it is an extensive collection, including parodies of plays by Wilde, Woody Allen, Beckett, Pinter and so on. Samuel Taylor Coleridge, who anagrams to “Multicolored Argyle Sea”, is a particular delight. Beginning
It is an ancient Mariner,
And he taketh lots of drugs,
it surreptitiously develops a second level of parody of a completely different drug-related poem. I’ll let you discover it for yourself.
And one of my favorites is William Blake, “Likable Wilma”:
Wilma, Wilma, in thy blouse,
Red-haired prehistoric spouse,
What immortal animator
Was thy slender waist’s creator?
When the Rubble clan moved in,
Was Betty jealous of thy skin,
Thy noble nose, thy dimpled knee?
Did he who penciled Fred draw thee?
Wilma, Wilma, burning bright, ye
Cartoon goddess Aphrodite,
Was it Hanna or Barbera
Made thee hot as some caldera?
The book is out of print, and its publisher out of business, but even if you can’t find a used copy, it is still available online for free, although without the illustrations… just scroll down the linked page and you’ll find it. It is the most satisfying collection of parodies I have ever read.
Form in Formless Times 
Fred Flintstone
arranged after and in tribute to Francis Heany poem by dave eberhardt 1941mireille@gmail.com
after J Fred Flintstone
The sun spread out against the bed rock
Like a brontosaurus laid upon a gurney…
I am not Moe Rockhead
Nor pretend to be,
Merely a stone quarry worker
Willing to bowl a frame or two.
I grow old,
I grow old,
Should my sabre tooth tiger suit
Be rolled?
In the cavern the women stroll through
Speaking of the great Kazoo
And singing
Abba,
Abba,
Abba dabba doo!!
2 The Hyacinth Gurl
The hyacinth Gurl
Dressed in sabre tooth skins curled up like a leaf
Blown to a desolate corner in the alley.
“Mein Irische Kind, wo whinest du?”
“Om mane padme om.”
She spoke of time present and time past,
But then we had to take her back to “the home”.
3 The “Huge Big” Lord Bach writes about,
In his xmas oratorio,
The bass solo?
A bad version
Somehow murdered in the cathedral.
Ein veritable todesfuge.
Shakespeare parody: Sonnet # 129“Mama Mia, Here I go again”
The expanse of passion in a flame of lust
Is, given evolution, only just.
Did the poets ever know?
That females have sex fantasies also,
Forcible sex, or w a younger guy
Is sex “dirty”, does a poet know?
If puritanical or dishonest, it seems, no.
The brilliant periodicity of lust,
Ebbing, flowing, as if your lust
Was God’s glory- just like the goat’s.
And the beauty of orgasm, is there an ode to that?
I thought poets were hip to shit?
Shakespeare calls divine sex hell?
Do we then question other of his work as well?
Sonnet 129: Th’expense of spirit in a waste of shame
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame
Is lust in action; and till action, lust
Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame,
Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,
Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight,
Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had
Past reason hated as a swallowed bait
On purpose laid to make the taker mad;
Mad in pursuit and in possession so,
Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;
A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe;
Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.
All this the world well knows; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell.
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Hi Dave, I appreciate the comments. I guess we all grow old, all grow old, and are justifiably seen as cavemen by the (for now) young.
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