Celebrity Death Haiku

Ronald Searle

1920–2011

Ask not for whom the
Belles of St. Trinian's toll —
They toll for Ronald

— Lairbo

 

Christopher Hitchens

1949–2011

Often made me mad.
Always made me think about
Why he'd made me mad

— Lairbo

* * *

Brilliant or blowhard?
We won't know until all of
His friends are dead, too

— Russell 1000

 

Andy Rooney

1919–2011

'Ja ever notice
How stiff and cold I've become?
Why 'ja think that is?

— Jeff Tiedrich

 * * *

Having run out of
Complaints in this life, he is
On to the next one

— Ishallah 

 

Leonard B. Stern

1923-2011

Leonard B. Stern has
[farted]. We mourn his [boner].
We will all [poop] him.

-- Jeff Tiedrich

* * *

Mad Libs, Get Smart,
And The Honeymooners, too?!
Man was a genius

-- O'Cyrus

Theodore Sorensen

1928 – 2010

Ask not what the land
Did for Sorensen, ask how
He'll enrich the soil

— Dr. Vitz

* * * 

Kennedy's wordsmith
Intellectual blood bank
Fuel on the flame

— Russell 1000

* * *

Wasn't Camelot
He said; what followed only
Made it seem that way

— Roger Rabid

 

Tony Curtis

1925 – 2010

Born a Bronx street kid
Paired with Leigh and Marilyn
Not bad, Bernard Schwartz

— Dr. Vitz

 * * *

Somehow it worked, that
Movie star face with that buzz
Saw Bronx accent

— Lairbo

 * * *

Maybe he never
Said "Yonda lies da castle..."
But we all heard it

— Roger Rabid

 

John Callahan

1951 – 2010

Didn't get far on 
Foot, but pushed every limit
There was with his pen

— Lairbo

Harvey Pekar

1939 – 2010

Wherever he is
Now, I'm sure he's complaining
About how it sucks

— Jeff Tiedrich

* * *

Very bad week for
Cleveland; first LeBron leaves, now
Harvey Pekar's dead

— Lairbo

Art Linkletter

1912 – 2010

Kids said the darndest
Things because they were told to
Say them beforehand

— Russell 1000

* * *

Genial host who
Made his guests look foolish... he'd
Fit right in today

— Lairbo

* * *

Not too surprising,
Abandoned as an infant,
He'd let kids speak out

— Meanie the Blue

* * *

Art did the darndest
Thing when his daughter died he
Blamed it on acid

— Babatjie

Dick Francis

1920 – 2010

Short guy has two long
Careers: riding, then writing
About, racehorses

— Lairbo

 

J.D. Salinger

1919 – 2010

Obituaries

Intrude on my privacy

Make them go away

— Meanie the Blue

* * * 

Will we see more

Glass now or did he decide

To take them with him

— Lairbo

* * * 

Didn't realize the 

Surest way to solitude

Is ubiquity

— Phil Valens

* * *

Only question now

Is which relative will tell

All first and for most

— Russell 1000

Howard Zinn

1922 – 2010

Debunked the Pilgrims

Made us ask whose history

Is it, anyway?

— babatjie

Claude Lévi-Strauss

1908 – 2009

No matter where he

Looked, there was human nature

Up to its old tricks

— Lairbo

* * *

Making sense of life,

He found, was mythology's

Universal truth

— Phil Valens

Irving Kristol

1920 – 2009

Counterpunched youthful 

Trotskyist leanings with a 

Hard right to the left

— Lairbo

* * *

Neocons mourning 

Spiritual godfather

Of their bastard creed

— St. Blaise

Jim Carroll

1949 – 2009

A Catholic Boy

Joins his friends who have died, died

It still beats Riker's

— Meanie the Blue

Dominick Dunne

1925 – 2009

Lived in the shadow

Of John Gregory, then died

In Ted Kennedy's

— Lairbo

* * * 

As Farrah's death was 

To Jacko's, Dominick Dunne's

Was to Kennedy's

— Phil Valens

Frank McCourt

1930 – 2009

Wrote masterpiece while
Teaching those with no use for 
It proper grammar

— O'Cyrus

Frank McCourt

1930 – 2009

Survived Limerick's

Misery and made of it

Such beautiful prose

— Lairbo

* * * 

New York school system

Had a brilliant gem within

Debt can't be repaid

— Meanie the Blue

Marilyn French

1929 – 2009

When she wrote, men fled

And sisters read. Ms. French made

Room for women's lib

— PK

John Updike

1932 – 2009

Can anyone name

Three non-Rabbit books he wrote?

I didn't think so 

—Lairbo

* * *

Of all his Rabbit books

Watership Down is my fave...

What? That wasn't him?

—Russell 1000

Studs Terkel

1912 – 2008

Helluva talker

Even better listener

Luckily for us

— Lairbo

 

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

1918 – 2008

Solzhenitsyn's name

Barely fits onto one line;

Problem for haiku

— Lairbo

* * *

Bitched about Russia;

Bitched about the west; heaven or

Hell's in for it now

— Lairbo

Alistaire Cooke

1908 – 2004

From a fireside

Wing chair, he explained us to

Brits and vice versa

— Lairbo

Douglas Adams

1952 – 2001

Makes his dent in the 

Universe, then leaves us to

Ponder forty-two

— Lairbo

Mario Puzo

1920 – 1999

With just one book, he
Revived his own, Brando's and
Coppola's career

— Lairbo