Lickety Split

This poem probably works as a limerick now:

Krypticket

Heading home through the thickety thicket,

got a goddamned low-speed, speeding ticket

for driving too slow,

so I floored it to go,

and flew faster than to lickety split it!

December 29th, 2021 has arrived, so we will soon be in Memphis, then again in Seoul (as we now are, on January 1, 2022).

Good Cheer For All

I've finally gotten somewhere with my paean to alcohol:

Drunk Gratitude

I've had but little alcohol at all,

such awesome stuff as Skunk Butt's Hind-end Ale,

and nothing drives truth home like alcohol,

for standing vigil in this dreary vale.

Thanks then to liquor's years of keeping me

from making awful messes of myself,

kept firm in its strong grip with dignity,

a jug placed safe upon the sundries shelf.

I think that's got it, despite its being quite different than initially envisioned.

Goody-Goody Great Cheer

This poem probably still needs more (un)working, even as a limerick:

Cryptic Ticket

Heading home through the thickety thicket,

got a goddamned low-speed, speeding ticket

for driving too slow,

so I floored to go,

and flew faster than lickety split it!

Still awaiting Christmas, we (my family and I) will hang on till December 29th, 2021 in Salem, Arkansas, my Ozark boyhood home.

Vitasta's India

I contacted Vitasta to learn more about her poem:

I've been re-reading your poem and comprehending it better, but I want to be sure before I post any more blog entries. You start with Coleridge, a silly poet who identifies himself and Britain with the Mughal Empire, the Mongols who converted to Islam and conquered Hindustan, destroying its learning, its schools, its culture, and its architecture. The ancient trade routes were all but obliterated. And Kashmir, your Fatherland, underwent artillery siege. Something like that? (By the way, I liked the sudden shift from plain to rhymed couplets. Or near rhymes.)

She agreed, more or less, with my reading:

I suppose so, it's a bit of fantasy as well. The first wave of refugees from Kashmir during the Mongol Era settled in Varanasi. But yes it's largely the current state of the homeland with the violence.

That current violence is between Muslims and Hindus. (Mostly.) Knowing the details above enables us better to understand the poem. (Obviously.)

Cryptic Still

Still before Christmas . . . the poem still needs more (un)working, perhaps as a limerick:

Cryptic Ticket

Heading home back through Thickety Thicket,

I got a damned low-speed, speeding ticket

for driving too slow,

so I floored to go,

and flew faster than let on in cricket!

Still unworking, my family and I spend our December 2021 in my boyhood home of Salem in the Arkansas Ozarks . . .

Tales from the Cryptic

Still before Christmas . . . the poem needs more (un)working, perhaps as a limerick:

Cryptic Ticket

Heading home back through Thickety Thicket,

I got a damned low-speed speeding ticket

for driving way too slow,

so I floored the board at go,

and went so fast its speed simply wasn't cricket!

Still unworking as my family and I spend our December 2021 in my boyhood home of Salem in the Arkansas Ozarks . . .