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’m feeling somewhat indifferent today. I got up early, had a cup of really godawful coffee which is not a good way to start any day. My lack of interest was exacerbated by the few things I had to accomplish. For those of you that don’t know I drive a 2008 Smart car. It’s a small vehicle on a good day but it’s the only delivery vehicle I have. Here in Maine, we recycle bottles and cans and today was the day for me to cash in all those nickels. I checked my garage and to my surprise I had 7 large bags containing 420 bottles and cans. I then loaded up my Smart car with all seven bags. Every window in the car except for the windshield was partially blocked. I managed to fit everything into the car leaving just enough room for my oversized ass. I had to travel approximately ten miles to the redemption center, and I looked ridiculous. It’s hard to look inconspicuous when you’re driving what appears to be a giant garbage bag with headlights and a windshield. Apparently, the police officer who then stopped me thought it was hysterically funny as well. There were no citations issued but we both had a few laughs about the situation. I hadn’t broken any laws, had all of the required mirrors, and he sent me on my way by standing on the berm and laughing his ass off. Just so you know I cashed in the bottles and cans and then walked next door to the liquor store. I’ll be opening that bottle of gin later because this day has got to get better. Only limericks can raise my spirits and get my day back on track. Here’s two . . .
It’s sunny outside. I’m not quite sure how it happened but it’s an effing miracle. I’m sitting here basking in the sun as I read through some of the thousands of limericks I have on file. Today’s limericks are not for the youngsters or those overly sensitive and chaste virgins. They were apparently written in the early 1980’s when an off-color sense of human was more acceptable. For a change these are a little bawdy but in a cute and funny way and I hope you enjoy them.
“Never miss a good chance to shut up.” – Will Rogers
Sean Connery once polished coffins for cash.
There are 27 moons orbiting Uranus. (pun intended)
More than 29 years after the Japanese surrendered in World War II, Lt. Onoda Hiro was discovered in the Philippines. He refused to surrender until he was ordered to do so by his commanding officer.
In Sri Lanka, nonverbal signals for agreement are reversed from those in Western countries. Nodding your head means “no” and shaking your head from side-to-side means “yes.”
A person can’t be a sumo wrestler in Japan unless he weighs more than 154 pounds and is taller than five feet seven inches.
*****
“The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.” – Winston Churchill
President. James Garfield was shot by an assassin in 1881. Six doctors attempted to treat the wounded president, but several probed the wound with their bare fingers, introducing a fatal infection into his body.
Lloyds of London Paid out $3,019,400 in insurance claims to the families of the victims who perished in the Titanic disaster.
Ermal Fraze invented the pop-top aluminum can in 1963, he received U.S. patent number 3,349,949 for the design.
Approximately 75% of what we think we taste is actually coming from our sense of smell.
Couples married in the first three months of the year tend to have higher divorce rates than those married in the later months.
*****
“Doing nothing is better than being busy doing nothing.” – Lao Tzu
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.
everyuselessthing.com 