Tailgaters – Uncoupled Couplets – Second Comings

Once, in search of Alaska, I took a cruise ship up the inside passage along the North American coastline.  To while away the hours on the boat I went down to the eclectic library where I borrowed a copy of John Hollander’s entertaining selection, American Wits: an Anthology of Light Verse. There I found a selection from William Cole’s Uncoupled Couplets. It was my first introduction to what someone (reputed to be the poet, Miller Williams) named  Tailgaters. A Tailgater is a rhymed couplet in any metre that uses a well known line of poetry followed by a parodic original second line. The inventor of the form is supposed to be the American poet and wit, Richard Armour, whose Punctured Poems: Famous First and Infamous Second Lines (1982) contained a selection, some of which are included below. There are those who would argue that the form has been around even longer, citing a poem by Phyllis McGinley:

When I have fears that I may cease to be,
I have another drink, or two or three.

Further research (see the LINKS section below) introduced me to a range of these poems which, in homage to W. B. Yeats, I prefer to call Second Comings. I am including my own modest introduction to the genre here, based on that celebrated Yeats poem:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The roller-coaster goes higher and higher.

***

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold,
Since Playboy ditched its naked centrefold.

***

The ceremony of innocence is drowned,
Yeats has taken lessons from Ezra Pound.

***

The darkness drops again but now I know
The electricity was bound to go.

***

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Is now the media’s iconoclast.

Should you like to include your own contribution, fill in the comment box below.

Punctured Poems by Richard Armour

Summer is icumeen in;
Mix the tonic and the gin

***

Water, water, everywhere;
The plumbing badly needs repair.

***

To err is human, to forgive divine.
Some errors I forgive, though, quickly. . . . Mine..

***

Jenny kissed me when we met
Not oft such quick results I get.

***

I celebrate myself, and sing myself.
My picture’s there, my bust’s upon the shelf.

Uncoupled Couplets by William Cole

When my love swears that she is made of truth
All I can do is blame it on her youth

***

Whenas in silks my Julia goes
The outline of her girdle shows.

***

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may
But take your little pill each day

***

There is a garden in her face
Her dermatologist has the case

***

Jenny kissed me when we met
The cold I caught is with me yet.

***

When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces
The rich take off for warmer places

Tailgaters by J. Patrick Lewis

Leigh Hunt
Jenny kissed me when we met
Drooling like a bachelorette

Robert Herrick
A sweet disorder in the dress
Is evidence that she said yes..

W.H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Turn on the gas, I’m out of methadone.

***

First published in Light, 2015

Tailgaters by Bob McKenty

The art of losing isn’t hard to master
(The Cubs are a perennial disaster).

***

Home is the place where, when you have to go there
They make you mow the lawn or shovel snow there.

***

Stone walls do not a prison make
(But they deter a prison break).

***

If ever two were one, then surely we
Amoebas were. (No longer; now we’re three.)

***

My heart leaps up when I behold
The beauty in the centerfold.

***

I weep for Adonais. He is dead.
He left me nothing. Weep for me instead.

***

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Use meter, rhyme, and humor when you write.

***

First published in Light, 2015

Tailgaters by Anthony Harrington

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.
There is, dumbass. It’s called a wrecking ball.

***

The time you won your town the race
I lost fifty at the bookie’s place.

***

I taste a liquor never brewed
But never wind up wholly stewed.

***

First published in Light, 2015

Tailgaters by Dean Blehert

Fear no more the heat o’ the Sun:
With lotion, bask ‘til you’re well done.

***

Had we but world enough and time,
We’d say “I am” and never “I’m”.

***

The lowing herd wind slowly o’er the lea,
Like readers plodding through an elegy.

***

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
No way!

***

She dwelt among the untrodden ways;
Her parents said, “It’s just a phase.”

***

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
Viagra puts the hump back in your heap.

***

A shudder in the loins engenders there
Stains that won’t wash out of underwear.

Tailgaters by Bob Mezey

I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
The kids don’t seem to know a goddamned thing.

***

The One remains, the many change and pass.
I am the One; I never went to class.

***

They that have power to hurt and will do none
Are missing out on every kind of fun.

***

If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
Shelley’s searching question—what a mind.

***

I should have been a pair of ragged claws—
Think of the royalties, think of the applause.

Emily Dickinson Tailgaters by Julie Kane

EIGHT LOST FASCICLES

129

Cocoon above! Cocoon below!
I hate to dust, as well you know.

***

132

I bring an unaccustomed Wine:
Rotgut, a dollar ninety-nine.

***

333

The Grass so little has to do—
If you’re watching it, that makes two.

***

465

I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—
The swatter had been left outside.

***

470

I am alive—I guess—
If not: S.O.S.!

***

878

The Sun is gay or stark—
Gay as Hell when it’s dark!

***

1215

I bet with every Wind that blew.
I’m in G.A. now, on Step Two.

***

1598

Who is it seeks my Pillow Nights?
A Cat who poops but never wipes.

EIGHT EXTENDED LOST FASCICLES

213

Did the Harebell lose her girdle
To the lover Bee?
That is one Soft-Porn Flick
I don’t care to see.

***

241

I like a look of Agony,
Because I know it’s true—
If you’re a masochistic Gent,
I’d like to Paddle you.

***

341

After great pain, a formal feeling comes—
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs—
If your Physician gives you Percoset,
An altogether different High from ’Shrooms.

***

419

We grow accustomed to the Dark
When light is put away—
But when the Light’s out in the Fridge
We grope for Chardonnay.

***

441

This is my letter to the World
That never wrote to Me—
There was no Email—way back then—
Or Spam—as you can see.

***

712

Because I could not stop for Death—
He kindly stopped for me—
The Harley should have tipped me off,
And the Hell’s Angels tee.

***

754

My Life had stood—a Loaded Gun—
In Corners—till a Day
I had the Sense to empty it
And put the Shells away.

***

1052

I never saw a Moor—
I never saw the Sea—
I traveled all around the World
But texted constantly.

***

These poems are extracted from Paper Bullets (2013) by Julie Kane.
All poems ©Julie Kane. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Emily Dickinson Tailgaters by Ralph La Rosa

A narrow Fellow in the Grass
Exposed his slim—seductive—Ass.

***

Crumbling is not an instant’s Act—
Please be patient. Use some Tact!

***

I heard a Fly buzz—when I died—
Le petit mort—oh—what—a—Ride!

***

First published as Emily D’s Down and Dirty Tailgaters in Asses of Parnassus, August 2017

Beginning With Famous Lines by J. D. Smith

Tell the truth, but tell it slant.
Otherwise, you’ll get no grant.

***

The world is too much with us, late and soon.
It also dogs us in the afternoon.

***

She walks in beauty like the night,
But should turn on the bathroom light.

***

My life had stood—a loaded gun,
A scary thing, and not much fun

***

After great pain, a formal feeling comes,
And thoughts of how to get back at those bums.

***

These tailgaters by J. D. Smith were first published in 25, (a product of The American Bystander) which is a daily humour publication dedicated to publishing prose of 251 words or shorter, and cartoons that don’t take longer than four seconds to figure out.

 Famous Poems Abbreviated by X. J. Kennedy

Of man’s first disobedience and its fruit
Scripture has told. No need to follow suit.

***
Once upon a midnight dreary,
Blue and lonesome, missed my dearie.
Would I find her? Any hope?
Quoth the raven six times, “Nope.”

***

Whoosh! – hear the Sea of Faith’s withdrawing roar?
So, baby, let’s make love tonight, not war.

***

Who will go drive with Fergus now?
You lazy cocks and cunts,
I thought I’d ask you anyhow.
Well don’t all speak at once.

***

Whose woods these are I think I know.
Shall I just sack out in the snow
And freeze? Naaaa, guess I’d better go.

First Printed in Peotry (i.e. Poetry) July 2006

More Tailgaters

Ice Cream Line

I dwell in possibility –
Shall I have two scoops – or three?

Barbara Lydecker Crane

***

New Model

Where ignorant armies clash by night,
well-informed armies wait for light.

Esther Greenleaf Murer

***

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,
I hope the jury buys my lawyer’s lies.

Chris O’Carroll

***

Hope is the thing with feathers.
Spike is the dude in leathers.

Chris O’Carroll

LINKS

An article on Tailgaters from Light Poetry Magazine.

Seventeen pages of Tailgaters from the Eratosphere site on Able Muse.

A large selection of Tailgaters from Dean Blehert.

A large selection and discussion of Tailgaters (also called Gwynnlets).

“In Memory of Bill Cole”, a poem by Seamus Heaney.