Oscar Wilde passed away in Paris in 1900. He spent the last few years of his life penniless and eventually died of neglect. He was a master playwright, poet and intellectual who was well known for his thousands of epigrams. It seems to me he would have been much more successful if he’d been born in the 20th or 21st century. To experience his wit and knowledge on an open forum talk show would have been absolutely amazing. Today I’ll post a few of my all-time favorites of his epigrams. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have over the years.
No great artist ever sees things as they really are; if he did, he would cease to be an artist.
Never trust a woman who tells you her real age; a woman who tells you that will tell you anything.
The proper basis for a marriage is mutual misunderstanding.
Men marry because they are tired, women because they are curious; both are disappointed.
Education is a wonderful thing, provided you always remember that nothing worth knowing can ever be taught.
We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing.
The old believe everything, the middle-aged suspect everything, and the young know everything.
To regain my youth, I would do anything in the world, except take exercise, get up early, or become respectable.
*****
Here is one of my favorite quotes of his and it is partially responsible for the creation of this blog.
“It is a very sad thing that nowadays there is so little useless information around.”
Since it’s the Fourth of July I assume everyone is celebrating. I just wonder what exactly it is that they are actually celebrating. Some say it’s for the nation’s birthday, but I think in most cases that’s disingenuous. I celebrate this holiday with respect for the individuals who were responsible for the creation and continuing protection of America. That’s the extent of my feelings on the matter So . . .
HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!
I think it’s time to turn over the celebration to some worthy children and their poetry. Anything non-political is always the way to go for me. Poetry is always interesting, especially the work of younger children whose approach is often simple and powerful. Let’s go . . .
Written By Stefan Martul, Age 7, New Zealand
I feel drops of rain,
And it goes;SPLISH! SPLOSH!
On my head,
And sometimes it goes; SPLASH! BANG! CRASH!
on my coconut.
📝📝📝
Written by Hannah Hodgins, Age 11, United States
THE SACRED CLOUDS
The clouds are stuck and scared to move
For fear the trees might pinch them
✍🏻✍🏻✍🏻
Written by Geeta Mohanty, Age 13, India
PEARLS ON THE GRASS
After the beautiful rain,
The rocks shine under the sun,
Like the droplets on the cobweb
Amongst the green, green grass.
✒️✒️✒️
Written by V. Cokeham, Age 10, England
There is an umbrella
In the sky,
It must be raining
In Heaven
I have one prayer to say to God
Don’t let it rain tomorrow.
*****
“The world is never the same once a good poem has been added to it.”
I’ve always thought of myself as quite the romantic but unfortunately there weren’t many women who agreed. All you really can do is accept your failings and keep on trying. I admit that after hearing ‘you’re not very romantic” a dozen or more times I finally got the message. Unfortunately, I never seemed to get it right and after discussions with other men I discovered it was quite possible that I wasn’t the entire problem. I continued to stumble along like a kid in a candy store with no pennies in his pocket. These limericks are for all of those ladies (and I use the term loosely) that didn’t appreciate my hundreds of romantic moves. These beautiful poems are a little dated, but they all have important information concerning men and women involved in “Little Romances”.
It’s time for some limerick history. As you may be aware I collect limericks from all sorts of sources. Recently I purchased a few small used books from an online thrift bookstore. Buying books in bulk is always a risk but sometimes it pays off with pleasant surprises. Today’s limericks were published in a small inconsequential book of just sixty pages in 1960. It’s been 64 years since then and many of the limericks in the book were collected from even older sources. They are officially titled “Laundered Limericks” meaning many were cleaned of obscenities to get them printed but still contain some vulgarities. I’d probably rate some of these as PG but that’s for you readers to decide.
I think today the title tells you everything you need to know. Here’s a selection of poetry written by children from English-speaking countries around the world. It always makes for a really good read and often motivates me to write poetry of my own. Enjoy. . .
THE SEA
By Susan Shoenblum, Age 11, United States
The untamed sea is human
Its emotions erupt in waves,
The sea sends her message of anger
As the waves roll over my head
💌💌💌
THE SPIDER
By J. Jenkins, age 10, New Zealand
With black, wicked eyes, hairy and legs and creepy crawling movements
Black shoe polish coat shining dully,
Hairy black thin legs.
Beautiful, silky and soft web
Dew hangs like miniature diamonds on lazy fingers.
A quick movement and this monster disappears.
💌💌💌
SHADOW
By Pramila Parmar, Age 11, Kenya
My shadow is very bad and foolish
Wherever I go it follows,
I lash it, I whip it,
still, it follows me.
One day I will kick it and it will never follow me.
Here we go again with another rainy and gray day. Spring really wants to make an appearance but for some reason she’s having difficulties. The sun shines brightly for 2 hours a day broken up into 15-minute segments. The problem then becomes when you have a “freezing your ass off” moment every time a cloud goes by. Truthfully Mother Nature is really starting to piss me off.
Now let me get back to the subject. A few months ago, I purchased a pile of old used books which appear to have once been library books. I have books from libraries all over the country. One in particular is a book of limericks (mostly clean) written by some well-known authors and celebrities. See what you think.
By: Lewis Carroll
His sister named Lucy O’Finner,
Grew constantly thinner and thinner,
The reason was plain,
She slipped out in the rain,
And was never allowed any dinner.
💥💥
By: Ogden Nash
It was an old man of Calcutta,
Who coated his tonsils with butta,
Thus, converting his snore
From a thunderous roar
To a soft, oleaginous mutta.
By: Oliver Wendell Holmes
The Reverend Henry Ward Beecher
Called a hen a most elegant creature.
The Hen, pleased with that,
Laid an egg in his hat,
And thus did the hen reward Beecher.
💥💥
By: Rudyard Kipling
There was once a small boy in Québec
Stood buried in snow to his neck.
When asked: “Are you friz?”
He said: “Yes, I is,
“But we don’t call this cold in Québec.”
💥💥💥
As you can imagine I read hundreds of limericks a month but even I was taken by surprise when I read these four. Just goes to show you that even celebrated writers and authors have a real bitch of a time writing limericks. I’m sure that if of you took a few minutes, you could write better stuff than this. Only one of these four showed me something interesting and that was the one by Oliver Wendall Holmes. Read it carefully and see if you spot his clever efforts.
I’m feeling the need for some limericks today. I recently came across a book that I picked up at an on-line thrift bookstore and it was a former Boise Public Library book with a date of 2015. It’s a book of limericks written by children for children and some of them are priceless. With that in mind here are four that I particularly liked. I hope you will too.
I stumbled upon a book of limericks some months ago and finally took the time to read through it. Bear in mind that the writers of these limericks are now 57 years older, and many have sadly passed away. Let me bring a few of their limericks back to life if only for a moment for you to enjoy them. These are selections related to our loving pets and other lovable animals.
I’m a fan of some poetry. That being said I prefer short poetry like haikus or limericks. What I like even more is poetry written by younger children because it seems they write what they’re feeling and that makes it special. In the past I’ve posted poems from younger children collected from English-speaking countries around the world and today I offer four more excellent examples of their work. Their poetry is alarmingly good for their young ages and today’s topic will be Feelings. Enjoy!
Today I’d like to talk about virgins and virginity. Whether we like it or not there aren’t as many virgins available as there once were. Back in the day virginity was prized by almost everyone but I think those days have passed us by forever. I’m reminded of a joke I heard a few years ago that the only virgins left were “ugly third graders”. It was funny at the time but the more I thought about it the more unfunny it became. I’ve been around a very long time and my experience with virgins is damn near nonexistent. With the advent of “soaking” (thanks to those devote Mormons), I’m not entirely sure if the term virginity even applies anymore. Since I admittedly have no clue about virginity, I thought I’d revert to my library for some soulful inspiration. My first choice when diving into my library is always limericks. Here are four limericks concerning virginity or the lack thereof. Enjoy!
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