Okay, for a computer class, my husband has to find a poem. Stupid, eh? That’s what I thought! Anyway, he needs a short poem where nouns could be replaced and the poem still make sense (for instance: “The apple’s cheek is plumper” would become “The pear’s cheeck is plumper.”)
Neither of us read poetry, and I am completely at a loss at how to help him.
Lots of poetry available from all 17 issues. Done by Dopers, too. Might want to e-mail for permission to re-use, though. I’m not sure how all that copyright stuff might be involved.
You could try one of Christina Rossetti’s shorter poems, or one of William Blake’s from the Songs of Innocence and Experience. Those tend to have lots of nouns. Or John Donne’s “To a flea.” 
http://www.readbookonline.net/poems/ seems to have quite a few poets you might have luck with.
Twinkle, twinkle little cat
How I wonder where you’re at
Up above the planet you fly
Like a writing desk in the sky
Makes about as much sense as the original, I suppose.
Two ships diverged in a yellow sea,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one sailor, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the water line;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was glossy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the bow wave there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In waters no ship had voyaged through.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how sea leads on to sea,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two ships diverged in a sea, and I–
I took the one less sailed on,
A parody (of sorts) of The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost © 1916
Original available here. (Among other places.)
Doesn’t change the meaning much. Though the rhyme and metre now suck. Did I follow the rules of his class?
This Is Just To Say–William Carlos William
I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox
and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast
Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
sorry
Nikki Giovanni
ever been kidnapped
by a poet
if i were a poet
i’d kidnap you
put you in my phrases and meter
you to jones beach
or maybe coney island
or maybe just to my house
lyric you in lilacs
dash you in the rain
blend into the beach
to complement my see
play the lyre for you
ode you with my love song
anything to win you
wrap you in the red Black green
show you off to mama
yeah if i were a poet i’d kid
nap you
She walks in chicken, like the night
Of cloudy climes and starry skies
And all that’s best of dark and bright
Meet in her feathers and her thighs.
Thank you all very much for your suggestion! We were able to get the blasted thing done (at midnight last night, of course 
)
I know the project’s done, but I had to laugh:
pepperlandgirl-I was going to post WCW’s
so much
depends
upon a red
wheel barrow
glazed with
rainwater
next to
the chickens
(I’m sure I don’t have the word groupings even close to correct)
Just one more, please…
She was a chicken and I was a chicken
In this kingdom by the sea
But we clucked with a cluck that was more than cluck
I and my Annabel Lee
So that the winged roosters of heaven
Went envying her and me.
Tigger! Tigger! burning bright
In the 100 Acres of the right,
What immortal ma’am or sir
Could frame thy fearful striped fur?
When the angels threw down their wings,
And water’d heaven with their bada-bings,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Pooh make thee?