Nineteen Clerihews

John Adams
Never visited houses managed by madams.
He remained faithful, without fail,
To Abigail.

Fred Astaire
Epitomized savoir-faire.
Onscreen he never did anything gauche,
Not even with Nina Foch.

Karl Benz
Viewed the world through an engineer's lens.
His vision, of course,
Was of a carriages without a horse.

Leonard Bernstein
Seldom showed a stern mien.
You could see for half a mile
His smile.

Ambrose Bierce
Wrote prose somewhat fierce.
Despite the fame of him,
No one knows whatever became of him.

Daniel Boone's kin
All wore caps made of coonskin.
Because shooting animals was Daniel's passion
He supplied the family's headwear fashion.

Alessandro Botticellii
Painted women large in buttocks and belly.
Seeing the ads in Vogue he would not find sexy
Models so very anorexy.

The Bronte girls--Charlotte, Emily, and Anne
Rarely gazed lustily at a man.
They reserved most of their leering looks
For books.

Paul Bryant
For years was on segregation reliant.
Beaten by USC, he saw the light
And fielded a team only partly white.

George Burns
Did not cultivate ferns.
He left gardening to his spacey
Wife Gracie.

Aaron Burr
In his lifetime created quite a stir.
What added to the fire of his fame some fuel
Was killing Hamilton in a duel.

Julius Caesar
Never became an old geezer.
Stabbed to death in his fifties he was heard to say,
"Et tu, Brute?"

Lewis Carroll
Wore the simplest of apparel.
Every High Street shop window in Oxford town
Reflected him in an Oxford gown.

Miguel de Cervantes
Often put on women's panties.
He did so not to be erotic,
Just quixotic.

Raymond Chandler
Of fictional facts was a creful handler.
He armed Philip Marlow
With a pistol, not a knife by Barlow.

Agatha Christie
Had a period in her life that remains misty.
She once disappeared from public view,
Leaving not a clue.

John Ciardi
Preferred grappa to Bacardi.
Always beneath his cark Italian eyes,
A word to the wise.

William Clark
Rode with Meriwether Lewis in a canoe of bark.
They alternated paddling, each in turn:
One in the bow, one in the stern.

Wendy Cope
Must have many times said, "Nope."
What else can we think when
Her most famous poems in titled "Bloody Men."