I. THE RITUAL
In the middle of some crazy ritual
Three librarians struck up a chant
It was completely different from any joke
I think I've ever heard in my life.
These three persons sputtered their way
Through 39 verses of hardware manuals,
Occasionally changing the tone of their voice
To match the plummage of one man's skin
Who danced a totem pole dead.Inspired by the second librarian's energy
On chapter 8, page 3
A violet sparrow packed his belongings
And flew East.....not before
Dropping a goliath turd in the Princess's soup.
The vibrations of the silverware against
the candles created an uproar among
the court jesters, who had until now
waited patiently by the guillotine.The third librarian, regardless,
surprised nobody by injecting the third
line of every Shakespeare sonnet into
his own private chant, which previously
had only included intensifiers.
As this orgy of language hilariously
damned the King's chess strategy, three
puppets finally brought to our attention
the peculiar smelling turtle, who was
rumoured to have been suicidal, that
was dealing a rather complicated game of cards.The librarians' chant died away
to a wisp, and everybody remained
spellbound as the final word floated
to the front of the Queen's mouth, onto her
tongue and ever-silently between her lips.
"Brown," she uttered. "Doesn't anybody
incorporate the color brown into poetry anymore?"We slept an industrious one that season.
2/28/89
©Evan Hause