Testimonial for Pier Café Raiders
Long, long ago, in old Tashkent
Before my energies were spent
I turned all vague, and violent
My gestures, like forgotten code
That emanated from a toad,
Left me tongue-down in the road
Behind my back the natives wept
Some, desperate, untimly leapt
Into the path that panthers crept
Some cried, some prayed, some ran amok
Some took to wearing my old smock,
Whilst others shared a single sock
But what of them, unruly mob!
They smote their breasts! They cried! They sobbed!
They played the tuba to Old Rob...
Old Rob, distinctly unimpressed
Sat down and sagely was undressed
his robes were washed and dried and pressed
I, meanwhile, did smoke a pipe,
Until Old Rob began to gripe,
The kind of sound that is not ripe
"I hate it here in old Tashkent
Where all my life so far was spent!"
Said Rob, becoming violent
Was Old Rob I or were both mad?
Old Rob attacked me with a knife
In search of snuffing out my life
But then asked me to be his wife
Was Old Rob mad or should I wed?
In truth, I'd rather far be dead...
My coarse rejection turned his mind -
He lunged again with fury blind
And speared the book that Hoban signed
Now Russell Hoban's signature
Is widely forged, throughout the Ruhr
By rule of primogeniture,
And (if I were a Theban Prince ...
With baggy clothes and a blue rinse)
I'd not vouchsafe you further hints
So go your ways, and give me peace,
And please try not to wake the geese
Who stayed beyond their term of lease
For now I want to go to sleep
And dream of beauteous Bo-Peep
And plummet down her Lovers' Leap
Where I may find my heart's desire
Or else a burning funeral-pyre
Extinguished by some heavenly choir
| Contributors: | fester, Roland, Apsley, loaf, churd, P, Beefy, dan, Grayman. |
| Poem finished: | 11th June 2002. |