GIANT, EXCITING, YEAR-END SPECIAL GRAB BAG OF POEMS, WORDPLAY, AND DOGGEREL

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PHRASES AND FOUND POETRY OR CENTOS A FROM BOOKS I READ IN 2026

Enjoyed a wide variety of books for 2025. Mostly non-fiction, history but also a couple books of poetry, 
one kids book, a handful of great novels, two books on Johnny Carson, and toward the end of 
the year, read a handful of books from Oxford University Press series, A Very Short Introduction to…  My year end list is here at Good Reads. 
Sharing a few notes and minor amusements. 

Tales of the Northwest, William Joseph Snelling

I never killed a man who wore a hat. 

Beauty, and I are strangers.

The Living Great Lakes, Jerry Dennis

The North Shore of Lake Superior, la marge sauvage, the wild shore. 

You see glimpses of time’s broad scale.


The wind roaring overhead in the rain, spattering and gusts. 

The waves hitting the oldest rocks on the planet. 

We could hear the crawl of the centuries out there.


Native American Stories

In 2025, I read a couple of books on Native American stories and found their narratives full of

found poetry and wisdom about time.

The Way to Rainy Mountain by N. Scott Momaday.  Here are a few:

Loneliness is the feature of the land. 

Ambition is the feature of the horizon

What’s beyond. 


***


Blood is connected to the northern winter. 

Memory is connected to the low fading light of the northern summers. 

The perfect home for an old deity, reaching for solstice. 

Here and there on the dark stones were the ancestral names. 

I looked back once more, saw the setting sun, and came away. 


***


Houses like sentinels on the plain, 

keepers of the weather watch. 

Wood takes on the appearance of great age. 

All colors wear away into wind and rain, 

and the wood burns gray. 

Nails turn red with rust. 

The window panes are black and opaque. 

You imagine there is nothing

and indeed there are many ghosts 

bones given up to the land. 

they belong in the distance

it is their domain.

From the book, Black Elk Speaks, John Neilhardt

So cold that the sun made a fire for itself. 

***

The world is happier after the terror of the storm.

***

The east gave peace and light. 

The south gave warmth. 

The north gave strength and endurance.

The west gave rain.


ZOOLOGY POEM


The lone wolf stalks the black sheep 

paper tiger was no match for the white elephant, 

who were both subservient to the top dog. 


Under the eagle’s eye

the bull and the china shop 

met the snake in the grass. 


Quiet as a mouse, 

the workhorse and eager beaver outsmarted the fat cat,

who has a reputation for being crazy like a fox.


​​NOT QUITE POEMS


First Thoughts


Coffee, I come for you.
Little birds I love you. 

they’re in on it, 

but I’m on it 


Two Line Love Poem

 If you write me once
 I’ll live forever


So Much for Free


The first clouds of the day 

that no one has known before. 

Why not stop and have a look

don’t cost nothing.


Anti-poem

These petunias are boring.
No poetry today!

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WORDPLAY, WORDS AND I LIKE, AND LINES I WROTE THAT DON’T HAVE A HOME

Practicing patrician pediatricians. 

Nebulous tributaries of the nether regions.

His Bombastic eminence created a ballyhoo in the whirlpool.

A word from the 1800s that I like and think we should bring back: fluster.

A word I like: tessellation.

An expression I liked from the book I Cheerfully Refuse: Early Abandoner.

Another one: No one got too elevated or too honest.

An expression I think is timely and appropriate: Your words are depleted of reality and filled with fantasy.

CHARACTER NAMES I’D LIKE TO USE IN A NOVEL

Langley Strongfront

Boise Penrose.

MISREAD EXPRESSIONS 

  • Press to ocean.

  • A smoke-eeled room.

  • Friend or enema.

  • AutoCorrect changed the word further to fat god.

WORST FOR LAST: FEEDING MY ADDICTION TO GENERATE BAND NAMES

False Faces
Successful Cloud
Wet Reckless
Sold Separately
Lunatic Competition
The Brain Sturgeons

One Thousand Cheeses (You know this is an English indie, folk band.)

Members: 

  • Bree Bagguet, lead guitar, vocals

  • Weginald Stilton, Bass

  • Gouda Slice, Alto Saxophone

  • Monterey Jack, Drums (American expat)

  • Shropshire Blue, Keyboards, xylophone 

  • Cornish Yang, rhythm guitar

Subcategory: Dickensian names and miscellaneous 19th-century English occupations repurposed as band names: 

Pumblechook

Wopsle

Lord Sniggsworth

Craft Land. 

Quarrel Picker.


IF YOU MADE IT THIS FAR, HAPPY 2026!

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