Joe Pacheco

I cannot wear or drink chartreuse

Because I’m gander and not goose,

As color it is too abstruse

Not green nor yellow is chartreuse.

Now just imagine a burnoose

And caftan dyed in bright chartreuse,

What Valentino could seduce

A maid while wearing all chartreuse;

Or cowboy make Injun vamoose

With boots and saddle in chartreuse,

Then lock crooks up in calaboose

With gun pearl- handled in chartreuse

And ride away on his Cayuse

Into a sunset of chartreuse?

On Mount Olympus, the Gods and Zeus

Drank pink ambrosia, not Chartreuse.

When dumb Pandora set evils loose

The worse of them was green Chartreuse:

A drink that looks like lizard juice

Squeezed by monks from old Chartreuse

And mixed with vomit of mongoose –

The secret formula of Chartreuse:

It saved the monasteries from abuse,

Did world- wide proceeds from Chartreuse.

Distinguished writer Marcel Proust

Would dip his cookies in Chartreuse,

And Charles de Gaulle without excuse

Filled his chocolates with Chartreuse,

While flatulent cattle near Toulouse

Were given water and Chartreuse.

Now recipes for chocolate mousse

Boast key ingredients like Chartreuse,

In gay Paris a Charlotte Russe

Is topped with crme a la Chartreuse.

Apologies to Dr. Seuss,

I don’t like ham and eggs Chartreuse,

I will not eat them in a caboose

With Sam-I-Am and green Chartreuse.

Stop! Now I find in my La Rousse

Another way to say chartreuse:

An elegant way to ask for booze

Is “s’il vous plait, garon, Chartreuse?”

And when I listen to the news

There are still some who say chartreuse.

A whole new set of rhymes to use

If I pronounce it as chartreuse!

But I’ll leave it to another muse

To make the most of French chartreuse

And turn to why I did produce

A poem written on chartreuse:

A class assignment to unloose

The poet within upon chartreuse;

Expand it boldly to traduce

A color other than chartreuse.

On my hate list, the color puce

Is second only to chartreuse,

Papoose and spruce and monk recluse

Are rhymes left over from “Chartreuse”

Its time for me to shake them loose –

Poetic justice for color puce!