Boston waiters just love to play god.
And to screw you with scarcely a nod.

When I said I hate fish

And I asked for a dish

Of spaghetti, instead I got scrod. 

Based on the suggestion: “'scrod' as a pluperfect subjunctive”  

From this joke: A traveler who is a huge fan of seafood arrives in Boston for the first time.  He leaves the airport and hails a cab.  After he gets in, he excitedly says to the cabbie, "Hey, I'm new in town.  Can you tell me a good place to go to get scrod?"  The cabbie replies, in a thick Boston accent, "Pal, I've got to congratulate you.  I've heard that question a lot over the years, but that's the first time I've ever heard it in the pluperfect subjunctive."

The part of a grain called the “glume”
Is the part that protects the young bloom.
They are also called “bracts.”
You can use these fun facts
To impress someone (don't ask me whom). 

Based on the suggestion: “glume"

My new movie, “Homage to Fromage”
Will include a twelve-minute montage
Of my most esteemed cheeses.
Plus Edam stripteases,
And Palin and Cleese badinage.

Based on the suggestion: “badinage”

If you've never seen the Michael Palin/John Cleese sketch “The Cheese Shop” watch it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPN3KTtrnZM. It's a classic!

The maw of a slug is voracious.
Its attack on your garden, audacious!
But those muculent goons
Can be turned into prunes
With a dirt that is diatomaceous.

Based on the suggestion: “diatomaceous”

One website said that the sharp-edged diatoms slice up the slugs' bodies, causing them to die. Another said that the fine powder absorbs the slugs' liquids, causing them to dehydrate. Either way, the cool thing about diatomaceous earth is that it contains fossilized diatoms: microscopic, silica-shelled phytoplankton like those below.

[photo credit: Wikipedia]

I attempted to write a sestina
With the grace of a deft ballerina.
But the form's so constrained
My poor feet got too strained!
Lithe gazelle became lurching hyena.

Based on the suggestion: “sestina”

A sestina is a poetic form with six stanzas of six lines each and then a seventh, three-line stanza. The end words of each line in the first stanza are reused as end words in the other five stanzas, and also appear in the three-line stanza. Those end words have to be employed in a specific order in each stanza, further constraining the poem. 

I have never seen a graceful sestina.

I had always pronounced the word “fracas”
To rhyme with its synonym, “ruckus.”
But I learned it's “fra-cás”
(To rhyme with “patois”).
Well, ain't that a kick in the tuckas!

Based on the suggestion: “fracas"

All cats can be somewhat capricious,
But mine is creatively vicious.
He fakes a pleased thrum
Then he mangles my thumb!
The scoundrel is downright purr-nicious.

Based on the suggestion: “pernicious”

I've discovered there's no second guessin'
The man at the delicatessen
Who handles the grinder.
It pays to be kind or
You'll learn an unsavory lesson!

Based on the suggestion: “delicatessen”