The radish is the noisy'st root,
Its vocal tack beyond dispute,
effusive in expounding truth—
so talkative, this verbal fruit.

In ages prior and aeons hence,
have poets, lost in reverence,
e'er had their solemn thoughts disturbed
in comp'ny of this verbal herb,

As, spicy, doth it bide its time
concocting tales in verse and rhyme,
and platitudes, as is its bent,
propounding truth, without relent.

O! Indiscrete and loose-lip'd mustard!
With secrets should it not be trustered,
lest ev'ry private thought and plan,
reverb'rate loud from your garden.

The carrot dreams in quietude,
The yam's indifference seems rude.
The leek a mute, and soon you'll learn,
The 'tato downright taciturn.

Confronted, then, by veggie basket
Minds inquis'tive may well ask it,
"Does none among ye speak…

On a long-ago visit to the hamlet of Acton, MA with my GOAT (that's "Girlfriend Onceupon A Time"—hey, I don't mind if they call me a BOAT), the town was infested with the loudest toads I'd ever heard, so loud I initially took them to be someone hiding outside our window playing a prank. I became enamored of the idea that someone might be prowling the countryside, hiding outside people's windows just to provide this bucolic ambiance. I contemplated this idea for a solid fifteen years until, in a moment of inspiration, this bit of doggerel spontaneously emerged.

Universally condemned among my friends as not especially good, it nonetheless remains one of my personal favorites.

ODE TO A CROAKING MAN

Oh, croaking bloke beneath the moon
so like a toad, it makes me swoon
whence "ChirRUP!" rises like balloon
which euphony just fills me with…