Today's Poems

The Annals of Improbable Research has a limerick competition each month, taken from the subject of a scientific paper. Here's this month's competition:

2012-06-06 Defoaming Intestinal Gas Limerick Competition

Defoamed intestinal gas inspires this month's limerick competition. To enter, compose an original limerick that illuminates the nature of this report:

"Experience With the Use of a Defoaming Agent in The Treatment of Gastrointestinal Gas." J. Alfred Rider, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, vol. 150, February 1968, pp 170–177, The author is at the University of California Medical Center, San Francisco.

PRIZE: The winning poet will receive (if we manage to send it to the correct address) a free, theoretically defoamed, hi-res PDF issue of the Annals of Improbable Research.

I have entered once before, and have not won. However, I was inspired by the thought of waxing poetic over intestinal gas (such a lovely metre, "intestinal gas"…) so came up with:

Intestinal gas in society
When foamed is a gross impropriety.
But science has found
That defoamed gas is bound
To reduce all our gassy anxiety.

And, even more inspired, I thought that a double-dactyl might be appropriate:

Higgledy piggledy
J Alfred Ryder
Was troubled by foaming
Intestinal gas.

And thus he discovered, that
Experimentally
Removing the foam
Gave (my rhyme's not THAT crass!)

I now need to achieve nothing for the rest of the day.