Poems: "Sinister Limericks" and "Assorted Pentastiches" by X.J. Kennedy, from Peeping Tom's Cabin: Comic Verse 1928-2008. © BOA Editions, 2007. Reprinted with permission.
Sinister Limmericks

Can Great-grandmother's mind be unsound?
Every midnight she totters around
Voicing cries of distress
In a dripping wet dress
That she got off of someone who drowned.

~

As Eliza stood twanging her zither
She beheld a vast sea serpent slither,
Oozing slime, up the beach
Till it came within reach
And she disappeared, no one knows whither.

~

Wailed an earnest young monk of Duluth
"Where O where is the ultimate truth?"
All at once from above
Dropped the dump of a dove�?BR>Prompt reply, if a little uncouth.

~

A lugubrious lady of Lawrence
Would regard each new day with abhorrence.
"When I wake up," she said,
"Just to get out of bed
Seems a good deal more work than it warrants."

Assorted Pentastiches

"Oh, go soak your head!" said Narcissus
To his image. "Some love affair this is!
I find little surprise
In your watery eyes
And your all too predictable kisses."