Clerihews, ahoy!

Dame Judi Dench
Spoke Spanish and German and French,
While Dame Helen Mirren was quite the linguist,
Fluent in the Queen's English.


Ezra Pound
Married a gal who was chubby and round,
While T S Eliot wed
A slender lady instead.


Ellen DeGeneres
Had a mood that was the tenderest:
She'd recline on banks that were grassy and mossy
With Portia de Rossi.


Al Gore
Was a stiff old bore,
And John Kerry
Was scarcely more merry.


Edward Schillebeeckx
Was so abstruse, for heaven's sakes!
Hans Küng was not much better,
Using Latin and Greek to write a love letter.


Anne Bradstreet
Was prim and proper and sweet,
But she grew randy as a sailor
When she met Edward Taylor.


Agha Shahid Ali
Was mystified by Salvador Dalí,
Whose art was something of a puzzle,
Not unlike a double-dutch ghazal.


Catherine Zeta-Jones
Married an old bag of bones
Who was aged nearly an aeon --
Still, younger than the husband of Céline Dion.


Kenneth Koch
Was a tall good-humored bloke,
But Frank O'Hara was not so placid:
He had a tongue of acid.


Blessed Pope John Paul
Wasn't a bad man at all:
He never gave anyone the finger!
We can say the same about Papa Ratzinger.