A Poetic Parody About Ontario's Hospitals: Lewis Carroll's "MERGERWOCKY"

WORDPLAY post #10

POETIC PARODY LYRICS:  "Mergerwocky", G. Hurwitz, published in the Western News, 2000,  This poetic parody draws inspiration from Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky.

ORIGINAL POEM: "Jabberwocky", Lewis Carroll, 1871; the poem was included in the children's novel "Through the Looking Glass" in 1871.    

EDITED: The poem was modified by Giorgio Coniglio to fit the format of this blogsite.

KEYWORDS: pastiche, classicsong, Canada, medical

BACKGROUND INFORMATION:
 This tale invokes an earlier period of health-care budget constraints (the mid 1990s). Manoeuvers employed by hospitals included redefinition of jobs, cancellation of services, ward closures, and even ventures into the non-health sector e.g. energy-from-waste technology. In Canada, provincial governments capped physicians’ total billings, delisted previously insured procedures and mandated employee leaves (named after Ontario’s Premier Rae). The largest legacy has been left by forced mergers of paired rival hospitals, who often initially had different skill-sets and academic pretensions. 

MERGERWOCKY

(poetic parody based on Jabberwocky")

Restructure! so the i.v. teams

Did energize recycled waste;

De-focused were the laser beams

And the closed wards outplaced.

"Beware the Mergertalks, my son!

St Joe's won't bite Health Council lunch!

Beware the Job-Job bird, and shun

The clawbacking Budgetcrunch.   

He shook his VPs' golden hands:

Time-line proactively he maps,

Then spreadshot he by the Lap-Top key

And graphed the Full-Times' caps.  

And  as in upsized thought stood he,

The Mergerwock, with errored claims

Came sniffling through the OPD,

De-listing as it came.

Old site! New Site! And deep in debt:

The shuttle-bus reshuffled wards.

"Let's integrate, new Mission state!"

He e-mailed to the Board. 

"And hast thou done the Merger-deal?"

A mix of cheers and groans and snarls;

"Come to Grand Rounds, my deanish boys

At the Princess-Di-and-Charles". 

'Twas Wednesday; at the clubhouse bar

Complained the Rae-dayed Docs anew,

"Our Conjoint Foursomes shoot near par,

But the Brass still play through!"

MAGICAL ADVANCED PALINDROMES: Definition, Derivation, and Cumulative List

WORDPLAY post #9
Discussion with Examples 
EDITOR: Giorgio Coniglio, December, 2016. 

An unrecognized subtype of "advanced palindrome" has been developed by the author. A pair of related shorter palindromes is usually required as a starting point. These can be drawn from the classic palindrome repertoire, but related forms developed by the author are included. 

At the end of this post, some 50 examples are listed. Each example will also appear in the wordplay-collage of periodic postings.

Giorgio's List: Magical Palindromes




#1. No K in Nixon. No X in Nikon. 


#2. Lair trail. Liar trial.


#3. Edit time. Emit tide.


#4. Not a banana bastion? No! It's a banana baton.  


#5. Gnus snug. Guns sung.


#6. Golf sin-net. Tennis flog.


#7. Apple-Help, Ma. Ample help, Pa.


#8. Evil did I dial. Laid I did live.


#9. Six axes. Sex-axis.


#10. No 'darn!' in rayon. No 'yarn' in radon.


#11. No 'R' in icon. No 'C' in iron.   


#12. Border? I'm fired, Rob. Border if mired Rob.


#13. Ev, losers revolve. Ev, lovers resolve.


#14. Cain, a manioc. Coin a maniac.


#15. A dim or fond 'No!' from Ilsa. A slim or fond 'No!' from Ida.


#16. Bar-garb. Bra grab. 


#17. Snap pins if I span nips. Spin naps if I snip pans.


#18. "Ned, I am a minor!". "Ron, I'm a maiden".


#19. No X - a salon. No L - a Saxon.


#20. Spit tops if I slop pals; slap pols if I spot tips.


#21. No left lemon; no-melt felon.


#22. Six at my gym taxes; sex at my gym? Taxis!


#23. No lemon in 'O, lemon'; no melon in 'O, melon'.


#24. Do nine men interpret nine memos? "Some men interpret." Nine men, I nod.


#25. Burrow or rob. Borrow or rub.  


#26. Ma is a sap. Pa's as I am.


#27. Doom a room if I loot a pool. Loop a tool if I moor a mood.

#28. God sees Suez. Zeus sees dog.


#29. No trace - not one carbon. No brace - not one carton.


#30. Oh! Pa's a Sam. Ma's a sapho.


#31. Won't raft-lovers revolt? Act now! Won't cat-lovers revolt? Fart now!


#32. No drape re 'boron'. No robe re 'pardon'.



#33. Flex-aware era waxes. Sex-aware era - wax elf!


#34. Megaton - Ottawa gem. Megawatt - O, not a gem.


#35. Girth trim. Mirth - trig.


#36. Senile fume. Emu, felines.



#37. Part bard. Drab trap.


#38. Cain, a motor erotomanioc. Coin a motor erotomaniac.


#39. Set agenda - red negates. Set a gender - ad negates.



#40. Too hot, too far, even. Never a foot to hoot.


#41. Aloof as a bard. Drab as a fool. 


#42. Ms: I pair prefer - satire vs. sarcasm; Ms: a crass veritas -refer 'priapism'. [veritas L. = truth]


#43. Selim, in Eden I'm Ada; Adam, in Eden I'm Iles.


#44. Spoof rut; turf - oops.


#45. Dog doo; good God!


#46. Dennis and Edna dine. Enid and Edna sinned.


#47. Elope tale. Elate-pole.


#48. E-file taxes. Sex ate life.


#49. Smug guns. Snug gums.


#50. God sees Oprah. Harpo sees dog.


#51. AL legal fees: see 'flagellate' et al. Legal fees: see 'flagella'. [AL = abbreviation for state of Alabama]


#52. Emil asleep peels a lemon. No! Mel asleep peels a lime.


#53. No melon, Mahon. No ham, no lemon.


#54. No-melt fig. Gift lemon.


#55. Net foe. Grab barge often.


#56. A dog, a pal, a panama. A man, a pal, a pagoda.


#57. Erupting, I sign it, "Carter". Retracting, I sign it, "Pure". 


#58. No sin-union. "No", in unison.


#59. No sin - U. London. No 'D'; No 'L' - unison. 


#60. Won't lovers re-tilt now? Won't liters revolt now? 


#61. No sin, even if 'No' in unison. No sin union - fine venison.


#62. A Honda's a Toyota. A Toyota? Sad No. Ha! 


#65. No sin, even if 'No' in unison. No sin union - fine venison. 

Poetic Parody: "AS WE NUKE IT"

POST #8
POETIC PARODY (reprinted)

ORIGINAL POEM:  Jaques' Monologue, Act iii, Shakepeare's "As You Like It".

POETIC PARODY: Nucl Med Commun 2002 and Photon 2004; modified with permission of the author (G.A. Hurwitz).

SONGLINK: See also our sister blog "SILLY SONGS AND SATIRE", post #3, where this poem has been considerably modified and set to music ("The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald", 1976 by Gordon Lightfoot).

PARODY COMPOSED: Giorgio Coniglio, 2013.

AS WE NUKE IT (Poetic parody)

All the world's a scan,

And all its ins and outs are Nuclear’s patients.

They have their statics, and their cine-modes,

And each head which rotates views many parts;

The PACS lists their registrations.....At first the milkscan —

Pooling of puking in the basal lungs:

Then, refluxing schoolgirl for her cysto,

With brimming bladder bright, curling her toes

Unwillingly to void: and then the scrotal —

Orchitis like fire, or a wakened Uro

Scrubbed for his torted testis:  then a bleeder,

Full of tinned cells, blood labelled in the lab,

Nil found by scopes, yet suddenly maroon-stooling,

Seeking the blip extravasation

Anywhere from antrum south:  and then, shunt-study —

Tube blocked in belly, with good CT down,

His eyes rolled back, us free-of-latex gloved,

Hakim or Pudenz bulged with fluid clear;

And so we draw it off.....The next is slotted

For the diuretic renogram,

Nephrostomy in place and pouch on flank,

His useful side, well drained by frusemide

(as we Brits say), but his big kidney’s counts

Rising again and portending trouble, no peaks

Or downturns in its curve.....Last scan of all,

That aids nocturnal transplant surgery —

Cerebral countlessness, then world-matched-donoring,   

Bank organs, yank tubes, and thank certainty.

Weekly Wordplay

WORDPLAY post #7

Periodic postings of palindromes, Scramble-Town Maps (creative cartography), binomial phrases, limericks, etc. 

SONGLINK: For those readers who like poetry set to music: You can find lots of singable limerick-medleys and other spoofs on our sister blog "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE", such as this recent post. 

Weekly Wordplay

WORDPLAY post #6

Periodic postings of palindromes, Scramble-Town Maps (creative cartography), binomial phrases, limericks, etc. 

SONGLINK: For those readers who like poetry set to music: You can find lots of singable limerick-medleys and other spoofs on our sister blog "SILLY SONGS and SATIRE", such as this recent post. 

HOT LINKS to collections of Classic/Goofy Palindromes #1,#2,#3