.

And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again? Archilochus

Saturday, January 24, 2015

Strawberry Swing

Lays of Mystery, Imagination, and Humor Number 1

I dreamt I dwelt in marble halls,
And each damp thing that creeps and crawls
Went wobble-wobble on the walls.

Faint odours of departed cheese,
Blown on the dank, unwholesome breeze,
Awoke the never ending sneeze.

Strange pictures decked the arras drear,
Strange characters of woe and fear,
The humbugs of the social sphere.

One showed a vain and noisy prig,
That shouted empty words and big
At him that nodded in a wig.

And one, a dotard grim and gray,
Who wasteth childhood's happy day
In work more profitless than play.

Whose icy breast no pity warms,
Whose little victims sit in swarms,
And slowly sob on lower forms.

And one, a green thyme-honoured Bank,
Where flowers are growing wild and rank,
Like weeds that fringe a poisoned tank.

All birds of evil omen there
Flood with rich Notes the tainted air,
The witless wanderer to snare.

The fatal Notes neglected fall,
No creature heeds the treacherous call,
For all those goodly Strawn Baits Pall.

The wandering phantom broke and fled,
Straightway I saw within my head
A vision of a ghostly bed,

Where lay two worn decrepit men,
The fictions of a lawyer's pen,
Who never more might breathe again.

The serving-man of Richard Roe
Wept, inarticulate with woe:
She wept, that waiting on John Doe.

"Oh rouse", I urged, "the waning sense
With tales of tangled evidence,
Of suit, demurrer, and defence. "

"Vain", she replied, "such mockeries:
For morbid fancies, such as these,
No suits can suit, no plea can please."

And bending o'er that man of straw,
She cried in grief and sudden awe,
Not inappropriately, "Law!"

The well-remembered voice he knew,
He smiled, he faintly muttered "Sue!"
(Her very name was legal too. )

The night was fled, the dawn was nigh:
A hurricane went raving by,
And swept the Vision from mine eye.

Vanished that dim and ghostly bed,
(The hangings, tape; the tape was red happy
'Tis o'er, and Doe and Roe are dead!

Oh, yet my spirit inly crawls,
What time it shudderingly recalls
That horrid dream of marble halls!
- Lewis Carroll, "The Palace of Humbug"

14 comments:

FreeThinke said...

A Dodgson gem not known to me till now! Thanks!

Thersites said...

de nada!

FreeThinke said...

In a mood for more disciplined nonsense?

Try this relic from my boyhood:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvt4b_qwC_Q

FreeThinke said...

____ A Femme Fatale Reformed _____



Her comments were really quite ane,

Though her morals were known to maculate.

She was sipid and sidious and sane

But mune to the comments quite draculate



Which trilled that her conduct was peccable.

She thought her behavior quite ferior

But flagrante delicto is wreckable

E'en to those who believe they are superior.



For a time this domitable daughter

Insisted on staying cognito

Her hibitions flowed freely as water

From Montauk to Sausoleto.



The results of this all were too effable

Her friends forgot she was ane

They thought she was merely laughable

Which caused her considerable pain.



"Enough of this!" she said one night

The future still is evitable

I haven't yet begun to fight

To prove I'm not a vegetable



So petuously did this dam-ned dame

Set out in search of iquity

To make her imical once again

For righteous ubiquity



Now that she's become dolent, they're dignant.

She's just a dividual now,

But free from the scarlet pigment 

That once stained her ferior brow.



~ FreeThinke (1963)

FreeThinke said...

The Passion of Our Lord
(Sung to the tune of Yankee Doodle)

Lord Jesus Christ has come to town
a riding on a donkey
The Romans saw a challenge
tried of Him to make a monkey.

Hail! King Jesus of the Jews
riding on a burro
Shout hosannas loud today
then crucify tomorrow.


Jesus took His followers
into the Upper Room
He fed them on His body and blood
and told them of His doom.

Then to Dark Gethsemane
a praying in the garden
Begging of His father
from His bitter cup to pardon.


Peter, faithless, thrice denied
that His Lord he kneweth
Judas kissed Him in betrayal
evil from him speweth.

“Hail, King Jesus of the Jews!”
shouted in derision
Drag your cross to Golgotha
that is the crowd’s decision.


Then they crowned Him cruelly
with strands of pyrocanthus,
Nailed Him to the dogwood tree
which broke His feet and hands thus.

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
only said, “Forgive them”
Of the crowd and soldiers wild’
who knew not He’d outlive them.


After tortures barbarous
He said, “I have a thirst.”
They only gave Him vinegar
which really was the worst.

Gentle Jesus, meek and mild,
then gave up the Ghost
Broken and defamed, reviled
just like a Friar’s Roast!


Then, they laid Him in a tomb
with all the Marys weeping
She who bore him in her womb
thought He’d be always sleeping.

But, He showed them three days hence
when He was resurrected
That the worst developments
by faith can be corrected.


~ FreeThinke (1994)

FreeThinke said...



___ Ode on the Recent Banning ___ 
_ of Public Nudity in San Francisco _


Oh what's the harm in being nude,
If no one's viewed while getting screwed?
Though natural, that would be too crude,
Even if one's not a prude.

Every father –– every mother ––
Possesses one thing –– or another ––
As does every sister, brother,
So why the fuss, the muss, the bother?

As long as brother's made like dad,
And sister has what mother had,
There's no call to be sad or mad,
In fact it should make most feel glad.

If parts got switched, then there'd be cause
For consternation –– not applause ––
So, I guess at least should be one clause
Or two within a township's laws

Restricting what may be displayed 
On side streets, park grounds, on parade,
In sunshine, rain, in light or shade
Deterred, not just deferred, delayed.

For most folks shy away from freaks,
And soon react with piercing shrieks,
And then there are the gawking geeks,
And those who publicly take leaks!

And then, comparison of size,
While never wise, engenders sighs,
Besides, the sight of flabby thighs
Might gag reflexes energize!

And so, since mobs are rarely quiet,
And many fatties will not diet,
Would-be voyeurs will not buy it.
So, just stay clothed. Why start a riot?

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

You are certainly in a boisterous mood, FT!

I loved the vid AND the poems. My morning has been made, and for that, I am in your debt once more.

FreeThinke said...

A gleeful romp with pure inanity
Is my defense against insanity.
Taking life in manner serious
To my health is deleterious.


};-)>

-FJ the Dangerous and Extreme MAGA Jew said...

:)

FreeThinke said...

So send in the clowns.
There ought to be clowns.
Don't bother; they're here.

FreeThinke said...

I met a man upon the stair.
I knew he wasn't really there.

I saw him there again today.
Oh God! I wish he'd go away!


~ Anonymous

FreeThinke said...

I wish my room had a floor.
It has four walls and a door,
but this walking around
Without touching the ground
Is getting to be such a bore!


~ Dorrie Lappeus

Thersites said...

I met a man...

I know that guy!

FreeThinke said...

Helo, Dali,! Well hello, Dali,
I's so nice to see you here where you belong.

};-)>