Marian Glaser © September, 2001
A poet was driven strange
trying to find a rhyme for orange.
She found lots of half rhymes
like borage, forage and storage.
Also lots of sight rhymes
like mange, grange and range.
Two words might do it or
lead in weird directions as in
Robin Hood’s long bow range or
Dr. Zhivago doing the tango on the range.
She thought,
“The a in orange comes
close to the i in tinge or hinge.
A creaking hinge could fit in a mystery,
adorn sci-fi or archeology.
She thought, “Rhyming ‘orange’
is more difficult than playing hop-scotch
in a tree crotch with a sasquatch for a wrist-watch,
as Stompin’ Tom Connors would put it or
making Danny Kaye sing ‘’O girl from Saskatchewan
if you want a hen I’ll catch you one.”:.
I can think of rhymes for heebie-jeebies,
like freebie beebees.
I can rhyme rannygazoo with
too or toodle loo and
vo-de-o-do with row or hay-ho
but orange makes me
want to not be.
No more fighting to explain what I meant,
getting a paycheck worth more than a cent.
No more worries about paying the rent.
Maybe I’ll stop and go on a binge
in anticipation
of my liberation.”