iambic puntameter

My love, I think, looks down on Love, you see,
For loss of time spent laughing at poor me,
Moreso her love lies in sweet Comedy,
So I did try to make a twin of he,
And I his mirror would attempt to be,
So by default, I hoped, she would love me.
There in my hopes to myself represent,
As one wreathed in laughter's own merriment,
I recognized my task; make two as one,
Therefore, what prop more fit to use than Pun?
A single pun will not suffice in this,
For laughter's best enjoyed when in excess,
Though would I not too broadly over-do,
Ten puns I'll pen; most metric, even, true.
And though the number seems set-up and staged,
Read on, for at poem's end my plan is paged.
I felt empowered, now, so fittingly,
A tool to make her laugh side-splittingly,
Collected I my wits and stores of glee,
That I may execute them properly,
Until we chanced upon a perfect day,
And I let loose my tongue, and fired away,
At first, an ante of low chips I threw,
And, sure enough, these common puns she knew:
She'd heard the one about the doctor's fee,
That was so rightly put on mallard's bill,
And of the soldier wounded rectally,
So that, it's said, it did him nearly kill.
She sighed at these. I needs be far more keen,
Perhaps some more will do. I told her how,
A man fell in an upholst'ry machine,
But not to fear--he's all recovered now,
Or how the oldest shepherds never die,
They just keep spinning yarns beneath the sky.
But none of these did make her lips to smile,
So I pressed on to further her beguile,
Of songs, she would prefer, and lyric, too,
In music, and my art, can one take glee,
Much like the man that often broke into,
A song because he'd gone and lost the key,
I thought, now could I do much worse,
Than backwards poets who can write inverse?
How could these, then, my auditor refuse?
Alas, they did naught but a groan induce,
I dug myself a deeper hole, a ditch,
Attempting in a more romantic vein:
As two in love jumped from a Paris bridge,
It's now believed that they must be in Seine.
Forgive me, dear, I begged, I'll soon correct,
And make a sly appeal to intellect,
By prinicple, if you must rebus, then,
To ride you must your fare share pay again.
A smile! A chance! Affection's favor's near!
I must admit, too eager did I start,
At that; I said she was a very dear,
And that she'd run away with my own hart.
She'd had enough by then. "Oh, please," she cried,
"The best of these pathetic jokes are dumb.
They're just so bad you can't, by right, take pride,
But look at how conceited you've become."
So you can see just why, by her reply,
I loved her wit, more finely-honed than mine.
My cheek she kissed, consoling me, "Nice try."
With that she left; I'd only got to nine.
So then, to wrap my tale of failed attempt,
Recount, you may, as I close in lament.
Ten puns had I brought for her ear to judge,
Nine out of ten she did not care for much,
I hoped her love, through laughter, to extract,
Alas, poor me, no pun in ten did that.

Absolutely brilliant. Ok, that's all I got right now. I've been meaning to put this page down for a while, as you can tell from the time between the most recent posts. I just got a second job, so that, plus school, plus . ..whatever. Too much, too much. I'll leave all this crap up for a while, but I may get sick of lookin' at it and take it down soon. So, get plagarisin' while the plagarisin's good! I do plan on starting up another incarnation of Insuffera B in the near future--maybe after this semester's over, or if I actually learn to write. If you don't know me personally, and would like to be "notified" via "email" of my return to the "WWW", then drop me a line at: catanomial (at) yahoo (diz-ot) com. Or if you just want someone to cry on, I'm good for that, too.

Love you guys,

persus-check out my friend Emily's new livejournal. Guaranteed off the hizzle fo' shizzle my nizzle!

something's wrong with blogger, yo

The Agrarians-a short play

dramatis personae~

Uncle Seamus~the uncle of Adolphus and master of the farmhouse
Adolphus~(aka Dolfie, the Dolfster) the nephew of Seamus

(scene-the farmhouse kitchen, daybreak)

(Adolphus comes down to break the fast at the courtesy of Uncle Seamus)

Uncle Seamus-Good morning, my nephew, Adolphus. And prithee, boy, the Dolfster, how did you sleep all eventide?

Adolphus-Very well, thank you, treasured uncle. My sleep was restful and undisturbed. A better sleep I don't believe I've fared since a coddling in my mother's arms.

Uncle Seamus-Excellent well! Pray, tell me, Adolphus, would you care to stroll with me this wonderful midspringsome morning to see what sights with which the pastures may entreat us? I would that I would have a word with you. . .would you word with me?

Adolphus-Sure just lemme finish this Cap'n Crunch.

(slurp)

(later~amidmost the pasture's field, Uncle Seamus and Adolphus walking on, stage left)

Uncle Seamus- How is your education coming along? I hear good things from your headmaster, Mr. Dummgeboren. His wife and mine are dear friends and I supped with them not a fortnight past. But what I glean from cordiality with my sister, your mother, is that you are enduring an unspecified malaise in your presently formative years. My own personal upbringing was not bound by the same incidental lameality of yours, but I was reckoning that I may have a sympathetic ear, relatively detached from your immediate duress, which into you may pour your personal misgivings with adolescence and the crux, adroitly-realized, between being and becoming, like so much liquid sentiment.

Adolphus-I'm sorry, unlce Seamus, but I completely lost you there.

Uncle Seamus-Of course, humble apologies, nephew. Are you doing OK these days?

Adolphus-Well. .. have you ever felt like .. ..say you make, oh, i don't know, model airplanes, right? And, like, this is something that you put a lot of time into. So eventually you get really good at making these model airplanes. You're, like, the shit, as far as making model airplanes is concerned. And people know, cause they hear about you and your planes a lot, and every motherfucker knows that if they want to learn how to make a model airplane right, they come to you. Well. . .. what if one day you kinda just stop, and you realize that making these planes hasn't really been about the planes at all. You kinda notice that all the time you've spent carving and gluing and painting and putting decals on, that was just a way for you not to notice something else. Or more precisely, for you to notice nothing else. It's like there's this place in you and you've been putting model airplanes in there for so long that you just assumed that that's where they went, but once it hits you, you see that there's no way that model airplanes alone can fill that space. Not even all the model airplanes you've ever made can. So your models are great, but they don't mean as much to you anymore, because you can't understand what's really supposed to go in that place. And every time you sit down, and try to keep building the shits, whereas you used to only think about how great this bomber's gonna be, or how well you glue the seams up, or whatever, you can only think about throwing another model airplane into this big hole and never seeing it again. So all of a sudden you're all, "Well, fuck. What the fuck am I supposed to do now?"

Uncle Seamus-No, my boy, I can't say I've ever felt like that for one instant in my long and prosperous life. In fact, that kind of thinking is so foreign to me that you may as well, for what good it did you, have been speaking in a different language altogether. Bantu, perhaps.

Adophus-Never mind.

Uncle Seamus-Or Welsh. I never did learn Welsh, though I have always fancied the sound of the word: WELSH!!

Adolphus- . . .

Uncle Seamus- . . .

Adolphus-. . . you ever eat an apple and get a piece of the skin caught between your front teeth?

Uncle Seamus- Oh, SHIT yes! Well, let me cut to the quick. I really brought you out here to talk to you on you parents behalf. If you would, Dolfie, do me the smallest of favors and take a ganderous regardation over towards the stables, now, please.

Adolphus-(beleagueredly looking) What's that big horse doing to that other horse?

Uncle Seamus-That, my precious, insouciant nephew, is the beginning of what eventually boils down to a long and arduously drawn-out custody battle, which humans call sexual intercourse.

Adolphus-What's 'custody', Uncle Seamus?

Uncle Seamus-(mumbling to self, fumbling in pockets). . od i don't know why i agreed to th. . . (to Adolphus) LOOK OVER THERE!!

(pointing oppositely Uncle Seamus withdraws a handkerchief from his back pocket and, after dousing it with ether, smothers Adolphus' nose and mouth)

(curtain, and scene)

Then, when they came to take away the completely innocent citizens, I didn't say anything because I'm not a. . . oh shit.

personal end notes to everyman left by the previous owner of my anthology

• Everyman learns not to bargain for his life, but that he must change his life
  
• Very reminicint [sic] of The Christmas Carol, (even though Everyman is first)
  
• The sense of knowing when your [sic] going to die, what you do, how would you change your life

gallows humor

My execution was scheduled for eight o'clock that evening, but with the girls to pick up from soccer practice and dinner to prepare I was feeling that I might accidentally fulfill the old adage regarding tardiness at one's own funeral. You must forgive my scatter-mindedness. Clara is away at her mother's, but should be back before supper, estimated to appear on the dining table at (hopefully) no later than six-thirty. Luckily, it's only four-thirty now, and I should be able to get the roast in the oven by the time I have to leave to pick up Janie and Obsidia from the school's practice fields. They really are very good.
So, as I was cutting ribbons of cheesecloth and gathering the bugs that I would use to garnish the meal, I was wondering what kind of execution I would receive later that night. Knowing the bureaucrats insistence on efficiency ( or its illusion, rather; taxpayers whatnot), and the preference for at least a modicum of spectacle, I assumed that an electric chair or firing squad would greet me in the town commons. Of course, my conservative views of death make me long for the rugged integrity of a length of rope, but these things aren't for me to decide.
I was waiting for the water to start boiling the skin off my arm when there was a knock at the front door. Why do I bother installing such a wonderful door chime if no one is going to use it? Well, anyway, I went to go see who this unexpected visitor was. I opened the door to find a frightened-looking young man in terribly nice clothes, standing on my doorstep and shaking deeply as if he'd just been pulled from an ice floe. I'd like to point out that he was perfectly dry, however, his phantom hypothermia seeming to be a result of something else, something he was hiding behind his back, perhaps. He asked me, "Begging your pardon, sir, but do you happen to have the time?"
I told him that I didn't, because I left my wristwatch in the pot with my arm, and I was real sorry about it.
He thanked me for my trouble, but, as he was about to depart I told him, in the friendliest possible manner, that it didn't bother me if he wanted to know the time, but, at this hour, the other residents of the neighborhood, who are not as friendliest as I, may take offense to their evenings being interuppted and their doors being touched.
He smiled (bless you) and thanked me for the warning, but then he inquired as to what time it was and I had to remind him that my arm was missing. He apologized and explained, grumbly,"It's just that I have to catch the right bus."
"But, young shivering boy, the buses are not on schedule this week anyway."
"What week is this?"
"It's next week already."
"What? Really? It feels like it's still this week."
"I know. It's so funny to me that you should find yourself on my stoop bringing this up, because I've had the feeling that it's been this week ALL WEEK LONG. Only it's not. It's next week."
We both had a pretty hardy laugh at this, and after I wished him well I planted further forebodings regarding our treacherous neighborhood. He seemed like he was finally calming down, but then he asked about Clara. I told him, with polite indignation, that although her widowhood would begin shortly, she was still my wife up until eight p.m. that evening, so would he please afford me the appropriate courtesy? He apologized and left carrying my remonstration behind his back.
Okay. . . side dishes. I gently skinned the potatoes and laid them along the counter so that they formed an arrow pointing at the pot of water boiling over onto the tile below. Good, then. Everything was working at falling into place, and I had just enough time to shower and dress before driving down to the practice fields. I turned on the water and lathered up my cheeks with the clean-smelling gel I had come to adore. As I shaved up and down my reddening cheeks I imagined stretching the razor out along the horizon, and exactly how many steps could be placed upon it until one's feet were completely unrecognizable to themselves? I wondered out loud if people still slipped in the shower, and no sooner did I look down than, did I?, did I find my neck broken, conveniently, between the fourth and fifth vertibrae, below, on the floor of the tub.