The noble town crier
(and mayor’s paid liar
whom some admire
and also aspire)
extolled the empire
when lighting the fire
(a premature pyre—
the royals’ desire),
posting a flyer
confirming the friar,
for reasons quite dire
had feigned to conspire,
but caught in the mire,
was next to expire.
Ken Gosse usually writes whimsical, rhymed verse. First published in First Literary Review–East in November 2016, later in Pure Slush, Home Planet News, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, Spillwords, and many others. Raised in Chicago suburbs, now retired, he and his wife live in Mesa, AZ, with rescue dogs and cats.
Left me smiling. Thank you.
Love the rhyming :)
Fun to read. Thank you.
Ogden Nash is applauding, too!
Love this piece.
This time the use of rhyme was indeed not a literary crime.
This is one of my favorites
Pure smiles, man…
Many thanks to all of you who shared their encouraging thoughts! Smiles … I love that word. If you’ve read any of my past 50-Word Stories, you’ll realize that nearly everything I write is metric and rhyming. Tweaking both to exactly 50 words is a fun challenge for me. This is one of the few where I used monorhyme—the same end rhyme for every line but without duplicating any of the end words (the lines were kinda short for internal rhyme, like Kelsey’s). And thanks, Karin, for noticing the influence of Ogden Nash. He’s definitely one of my faves.