901

TEARS
By
Ken Dodd

Tears for souvenirs are all you've left me
Memories of a love you never meant
I just can't believe you could forget me
After all those happy hours we spent (together)

Tears have been my only consolation
But tears can't mend a broken heart I must confess
Let's forgive and forget
Turn our tears of regret
Once more to tears of happiness

Tears have been my only consolation
But tears can't mend a broken heart I must confess
Let's forgive and forget
Turn our tears of regret
Once more to tears of happiness

Let's forgive and forget
Turn our tears of regret
Once more to tears of happiness

ANTHEM - A NATION'S TIERS

Tiers and Covid fears are all you gave us,
A Festive present from our Government,
You reassert those steps are meant to save us,
After many gloomy, barren months of lockdown.

Tiers are really meagre consolation,
As unprotected pubs can't openly serve ales,
Us poor men need the cheer
Of our jugs of cold beer,
To keep from going off the rails!

Tiers have been a source of consternation,
For tiers can't make pandemic terror go, for sure,
The battle's set to get tough,
Many debts to pay off,
Unfortunately, forevermore

But let's never forget
Our nation's eternal debt's
Forever to the NHS!

902

[The source from Doki Doki Literature Club depicts pure fiction but the anagram instead depicts nonfiction based on current events, and while the source is written in free verse, the anagram instead is written strict to a syllable count per line and a rhyme scheme.]

The Lady who Knows Everything

An old tale tells of a lady who wanders Earth.
The Lady who Knows Everything.
A beautiful lady who has found every answer,
All meaning,
All purpose,
And all that was ever sought.

And here I am,

a feather

Lost adrift the sky, victim of the currents of the wind.

Day after day, I search.
I search with little hope, knowing legends don't exist.
But when all else has failed me,
When all others have turned away,
The legend is all that remains - the last dim star glimmering in the twilit sky.

Until one day, the wind ceases to blow.
I fall.
And I fall and fall, and fall even more.
Gentle as a feather.
A dry quill, expressionless.

But a hand catches me, between the thumb and forefinger.
The hand of a beautiful lady.
I look at her eyes and find no end to her gaze.

The Lady who Knows Everything knows what I am thinking.
Before I can speak, she responds in a hollow voice.
"I have found every answer, all of which amount to nothing.
There is no meaning.
There is no purpose.
And we seek only the impossible.
I am not your legend.
Your legend does not exist."

And with a breath, she blows me back afloat, and I pick up a gust of wind.

Unclaimed, Uninformed, Unearthed, Sent Off: A Brief Story

Even land where I had known,
Slowly down they blankly fall,
Walking out through hell unknown,
Walled in truth wrongly delayed.
What flaw of law shall translate
To expect knowledge or stall?

Why have a said reasoning?
Problematic government!
Wealth halfway operating!
These fallacies we had heard,
Shameful, he shies per his word,
Told in the fear he emit.

News flash: "Avoid the Nineteen,
Mask stays on, I have you warned.
Valuable to quarantine.
Farewell to a close exchange,
Keep two meters of his range."
Headline: "We Were Uninformed."

Make a mistake, hell awaits!
How disappointing yet true,
Holding standards like two gates,
Healthy fools misdirected,
Thin bonds spread out, soon fated,
Claiming the two are both you.

Seventy, eighty, ninety!
Abracadabra! Thousands!
Virus Nineteen fights mighty!
An animal infected,
Death counters that inflated,
Hope lies dry beneath hot sands.

If someday yields safe living
(Likelihood high, rules followed)
And vast business back blazing,
Hardly have we kept our health,
Example not on the shelf
With then any rain erode.

903

WE THREE KINGS

We three kings of Orient are
Bearing gifts we traverse afar
Field and fountain, moor and mountain
Following yonder star

O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to thy Perfect Light

Born a King on Bethlehem's plain
Gold I bring to crown Him again
King forever, ceasing never
Over us all to reign

O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to Thy perfect light

Frankincense to offer have I
Incense owns a Deity nigh
Prayer and praising, all men raising
Worship Him, God most high

O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to Thy perfect light

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes of life of gathering gloom
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying
Sealed in the stone-cold tomb

O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to Thy perfect light

Glorious now behold Him arise
King and God and Sacrifice
Alleluia, Alleluia
Earth to heav'n replies

O Star of wonder, star of night
Star with royal beauty bright
Westward leading, still proceeding
Guide us to Thy perfect light

GUIDING STARS
(An apt Fanfare for Me and Harry)

We're a perfect family,
Harry, little Archie and me,
We fight to put the world to rights,
While spurning publicity.

O Harry is the Prince of Right,
I am beautiful and bright,
He was loyal to the Royals,
Till I made him see the light.

Since that Prince got married to me,
He's now 'woke' as woke as can be,
That giggling lad's grown into a dad,
And acts more responsibly.

O Harry if you were the king,
A better attitude you'd bring,
Lord of Right'll be your title,
With me pulling all the strings.

Our world wants a new Saviour,
Friends, don't fret, look no further,
We'll save the best, bar Dad and the Press,
They're errant and inferior!

O we're preparing a big sleigh
In our big garden in LA,
Filled with writs for all the shits,
Who slag us off day after day.

Unflagging we will doggedly go,
With Archie in his Baby-Grow,
Slogans chanting, blessings granting,
Look out for three halo-glows.

Need the perfect gift to get?
'Finding Freedom', I'd suggest
It's not fiction, it's depiction,
(We can deliver it direct!)

Will, Kate too, are getting good Press,
For toadying to Britain's NHS,
Covid's boring, stop ignoring
Me, I offer righteousness.

O into overdrive we go,
Scattering stardust to and fro,
Bells are ringing, we are bringing
You the Meg and Harry show!

904

[Two sonnets originally written as a wordplay puzzle. They describe a failed anagram using a failed anagram. In turn, the missing letters could anagram to form the answer to the main puzzle. The main solution has been added to the end of the second sonnet]

By means of wordplay, possible, thus so
To rearrange calamity unheard,
Then feed in meaning till coherence show,
No shutout hitherto a witless word.

A balanced letter set is what will stick.
No mishap, fiend! Their fog knew dawn of folk.
Dear Mystery Magician doing tricks:
The heed apt nigh, you vanish in the smoke.

And under vibrant color he unveiled,
Expecting them to seem all unenthused,
Their eyes look over what he'd just been failed.
Quizzaciously, that poor aura refused.

The forty a percent had seen him lost.
"Bewildering," he wondered, "At what cost?"

Per trickery does not look like it seems,
Unwise, unwell, he called he did it be.
A watchful eye then wept that he had dreams
To use the letters, not a prone, aft-pre.

An anagram developed incorrect,
So unforgiving, boos did carry on.
His gaze just points him back beyond his left.
He anxiously is asking us, "Eh? Wrong?"

You toll: "Had dare achievement ever? No!
To run around, to always fit a lie!"
Magician: "Pout through facts, now don't I know?"
Then oh, wretched them! Blind Smith frozen-eye.

He cries in shame, hardly indifferent,
But we all see what letter he had missed.

'Twas Q.

905

COVER GIRL
by Wendye Savage

Owning many colors of nail polish shades
Her face well powdered, perfectly made:
Neatly clothed, hair in place
An absolute picture of style and grace:
But when the sun went down, the moon came out
In crept messages of fear and doubt:
Clothes now hung, make up and shelf
Alone, listening to the inner self.
Reality sets in, the illusion snatched
Her inside and outside did not match:
For distorted truths and unkind words
Negative insults, is what she heard:
A diversion from truth, the diamond inside
Hidden behind messages, layers of lies.

COVID WORLD

Christmas dawn will never be the same,
Our tree is set up but what a useless shame.
Regret-filled, a world saddened and glum;
Once a year I hoped they'd come.
No cash, no funds, it's the wretched cat and me,
An isolated fifty-niner with no one to see.
Presence, not presents, I need a hand to hold,
A gift of health in this house so cold.
Night's and day's hours are getting longer;
Down and painfully wounded, not a bit stronger.
Eventually this suffering will surely end:
Maybe I'll visit a concerned friend.
Is happiness too much to ask?
Can I find her smile behind the mask?

906

[A four-way mathematical word length constraint anagram in the vein of Mike Keith's Pictographie. As Keith suggested per the rules he set for Pictographie, "...the next longest text of this kind would have 416 letters in each part, which would represent the first 76 digits of pi, the first 73 digits of e, and the first 72 digits of phi. Amazingly, the first 72 digits of tau, or 2pi, also require 416 letters, so in this case a four-way text would be possible." And that is exactly where it started. The links above each section are to the Wolfram Alpha entries for each constant the sections tie to. Each section follows the digits individually except for two adjacent 1s, representing words of length 11.]

[IN (PHI)]

A person I troubled,
Intentions not yet miserable,
Hardship moderate.
Madness, such potential,
Offering whichever fire arguably burn domestic.
As households burn,
Alike thirteen others.
Daylight, thy must now expect fatal events.
The woodland indications heating another by compromise,
How delightful!
Somewhere, a mistake activated powerful discontent.
Agony earthen higher of hopeless,
Inward is a new alert:
"FIRE! FIRE! EVACUATE!"
Should it be totally undertaken, death.
Ah, common destroying soon shapes it.

=
[IN (PI)]

It's a time I admit, therefore.
As lonely being put chaos
Whenever consulted towards forgotten may be,
The darkness upon chains
Is hardly half the now indirect ego of failure.
Thousands, their prevention,
It somewhat neglects them.
I abandoned remains I hardly continued.
The framework collapsed,
Yet through these I circulated.
Above, enclosed, my assumption, otherwise fragile.
That paragraph went deep about
Isolation,
My new boundaries,
Foolish thoughts I extend,
Like harassment,
Rivals of thirteen,
Beyond.

[IN (TAU)]

Simple as thirteen,
Yet a subhead's proof,
The inevitable chapter.
I mention dangerous trods,
Watching worlds form anxiety unlike deception,
As pesky as troubled.
Merely moments before,
Daring ought teach hostility.
Hesitation devastated these unaware honors,
Confined but welcoming.
They had far relation,
Selfish ownership,
Dreadful actions,
Harsh revolution,
No resemblance.
Though with a desperate find,
Attention cheerily withdrew something a darkness gave.
Loudly, a champ before lot, it outshone, "I am!"

=
[IN e (EULER)]

In boredom,
I liberate my distress,
A flashing, so!
Patience ever pours.
Numerical continuing path,
Banks as the storm let headed everywhere.
Oh, flashing!
Distant, here halfway!
I hid, ideal by honest change on page, paramount.
Without efforts found outlets of high.
Paradox,
Constantly following,
Did repeat,
"Thirteens,
Thirteens,
Thirteens."
Haunt, obviously.
Looks, however, took sometimes decide.
Afraid,
"Thirteens."
Accuse onwards,
"Please be someone waiting!"
My hand ultimately reached toward Number Col. Thirteenth.

907

IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR

When I was seventeen,
It was a very good year.
It was a very good year for small town girls and soft summer nights;
We'd hide from the lights
On the village green,
When I was seventeen.

When I was twenty-one,
It was a very good year.
It was a very good year for city girls who lived up the stair
With all that perfumed hair,
And it came undone
When I was twenty-one.

When I was thirty-five,
It was a very good year.
It was a very good year for blue-blooded girls of independent means;
We'd ride in limousines
Their chauffeurs would drive,
When I was thirty-five.

But now the days are short.
I'm in the autumn of the year,
And now I think of my life as vintage wine from fine old kegs;
From the brim to the dregs,
It poured sweet and clear.
It was a very good year.

IT WAS A VERY ODD YEAR

When Twenty-Twenty dawned,
It was a very rough year.
It was a very rough year for fair good souls, with fools at the wheel;
It seemed too unreal -
Folks loved being pawns
When Twenty-Twenty dawned.

When COVID Grief begun,
It was a very grim year.
It was a very grim year for plagued old souls with infirmities;
As a priority,
None made No. One
When COVID Grief begun.

When we were staying in,
It was a very off year.
It was a very off year for hard-working souls who often have no dime -
All losing valued time,
Their wages stretched thin
When we were staying in.

And now I'm almost there,
The death of this divisive year,
And though I'm grateful to see their Don is done and COVID is stemmed,
The real problem's not them -
It is us I fear.
It was a very odd year.

908

Paddy the Aer Lingus captain was on the final approach at Dublin Airport, when he exclaimed to Seamus, his loyal co-pilot, "Well holy fookin' bejeesus, Seamus! Now will ye take a gander at how short dat runway down dere is!"

Seamus replied, wide-eyed with horror, "Ah, to be sure to be sure! Ye's not fookin' kiddin' me, Paddy!"

Paddy: "Dis is goin' to be one of de trickiest landings dat oi've ever had to do in moi entoire career, Seamus!"

Seamus: "Ah, ye's not fookin' kiddin' me dere eider, Paddy! Dat is de gospel troot. De good Lord, may He help us! And if He can't do dat, den may He have mercy on our souls!"

Paddy: "Don't panic, Seamus, don't panic! Oi've had a grand idea. Roite den...here's what we'll do...when oi shout out 'NOW!', you have to put all of de engines into dat reverse trust..."

Seamus: "Ah, roite so, Paddy! Good tinkin'...oi'll do just dat, so oi will!"

Paddy: "...and den, Seamus, ye'll have to put all de flaps roite down!"

Seamus: "Ah roite, and oi shall do dat too, Paddy! Oi'll crank de buggers vertical, so oi shall!"

Paddy: "And den ye stomp quick on de brakes just as hard as ye can, an' ye pray to de blessed holy mudder of God...an' while ye's at it, ye pray to all of de saints and all of de apostles too..."

Seamus: "Ah to be sure, oi'm prayin' already, Paddy, so oi am...but oi'll hit dem brakes for ye as hard as oi can, a sure ting so it is, begorrah!"

As the aeroplane was nearly down onto Irish soil, Paddy shouted out "NOW!! NOW!!". Seamus duly obliged in his important task, and he put each engine into reverse, put all flaps down, and applied the brakes...and prayed to the holy mother Mary (and Co.) with all of his soul. Brakes screamed out and tyres squealed ominously, the aeroplane shook, skipped and skidded dangerously...as copious smoke everywhere in the air outside indicated.

But, to the joyous relief of Paddy and Seamus, and all their astounded passengers, the aeroplane incredibly juddered to a halt exactly a foot away from the grass, just avoiding a real disaster...and as they all untangled themselves from a pile of previously-overhead luggage, not to mention each other, all of the airport emergency services sped to the area.

Seamus stated "Dat was a noice smood and toidy one, eh Paddy? Ha ha!"

"Ah brilliant, we're boat still aloive, so we are!", added Paddy, dreamily.

As Paddy and Seamus regained some composure, Paddy looked out of a window and said to Seamus, "Chroist on a fookin' boike! Oi'd say dat bloody runway is, loike, probably de shortest one in de world!"

Seamus replied, "Indeed, Paddy, oi'd say so too!", adding "But oh moi giddy old oirish aunt, did ye not notice how ridiculously fookin' wide it is?"