74

Adroit.
Cap shapes hat like speed skating penguin.

A harp.
Savoury cheesecake wears oatmeal gloves.

Plum.
You decided to rest until the moon was seven years old.

Enough.
Margarine scolded your internal kitten.

Tuesday.
We sold the tennis balls to the Royal Marines.

Baritone.
Do you remember? Do you remember that?

Gulf.
Nestled seaward by the scope handle, lay an old fox.

Phosphorous.
Most old time, elf time, plastic-parsnip challenge.

Challenge.
Bolster the envelope with your mirror signal eye.

Stripes.
He crosses the floor, talcum power stares, wine is opened.

Goodnight.

An extract from "Woman, you hath begotten maye flowyer" by Sir Moscmind Pespye

[A barn. Late summer. The heat rises over the fields and, whilst the hay is being made, Maquando and his compatriot, Brenquantho discuss the latest developments in Venice.]

Maquando: Verily, I tell you. Tis more than the next that this doth spoon hit my heart with purple valium.

Brenquantho: What ho, plain sailing banquet that strings these cheese by the fingers of your apple chirsbaforde?

Maquando: Dist thou no hearest that the noble Earl of Gesper is with house and that finally his very tweskubule is lit in moths and tanskernee?

Brenquantho: You gibble my caper with these bare surprises! I am most fox'd by the goose that hath doeth blown my falcon.

Maquando: Yea. And verily it is so. He hath paid a king's jacket for the town of Marspernree!

Brenquantho: The old Chattermonger! I had him down for a turn corner or a broken wasp. He hath pull'd cats from a jancy hand this time!

(laughter)

Maquando: Verily, it is so. Come, the fascumb'd blane is down by the wilting house. It is time for snesper's oile.

[Maquando and Brenquantho exit, carrying rakes and slapping each other on the back]

I think these words, written by Wislawa Szymborska, are appropriate

Photograph from September 11
by Wislawa Szymborska

They jumped from the burning floors—
one, two, a few more,
higher, lower.

The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them
above the earth toward the earth.

Each is still complete,
with a particular face
and blood well hidden.

There’s enough time
for hair to come loose,
for keys and coins
to fall from pockets.

They’re still within the air’s reach,
within the compass of places
that have just now opened.

I can do only two things for them—
describe this flight
and not add a last line.

—Wislawa Szymborska,
translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczk

Wislawa Szymborska, "Photograph from September 11" from Monologue of a Dog. Copyright © 2005 by Wislawa Szymborska.

The Friday Play (II)

BREAD: If we are more than this then are we not less than something else.

MILK: If we are not less than something else are we more than this?

BREAD: I have often contemplated this when rising.

MILK: This too weighs heavy on my mind.

KNIFE: Are you both agreed?

BREAD: Yes. Let it be done.

MILK: Yes. Let it be done.

[Bread picks up a knife and slices itself; milk spills itself. Knife exits stage right.]

The Steve Forbes Mystery

Perhaps he went missing when flying over Pavarotti and has been sending out distress flares. The Italians, in their grief, are not picking up on this, meaning that Forbes is in mortal danger of being burried alive with his minature plane.

Only a daring rescue mission mounted by Sir Richard Branson and Tony Bullimore will save him.

But what's this? Sir Richard has been arrested, by Jose Carreras and Tony Bullimore's flying boat has had holes drilled into it by Bill Gates.

Reconstruction. Deutsche Mouse. Kent. Friday. A circle. Bicycle warfare. Drum buffoon. Fanfare. Potting compost. Ye Olde Oak. Frey Bentos Pies. Uncle Ben's rice. Seagulls. Chemistry set. Arsonists. Chin. Most. Most. Cowboy. Pardon elephant. Setting stone. Sundial. Sound. Flagon. Lunchtime.

****
John Side wound his watch, the rain fell through the holes in the roof and at once a lazy Sunday had turned into something more true, more real, more open than a pack of sardines in a casino. Armed centipedes roamed the streets, their voices shrill and hectoring. "How long would their occupation last", John wondered aloud.

****
Parker Harpin strolled down the grey-banded cloak left on West and 94. Keaton had opened his gallery this morning and Harpin felt as cold as a greyhound. What had occurred last night? The saucepan fell into the rice mould and iron faded into a quick harpoon of logic. Parker's memory was molten lava and the tennis court of his mouth had been invaded by one thousand wasps. Tuesday was fast becoming Thursday.

****
"Imagine the scene," announced Dr Clive Poker to the hall of eager students. "You awake to find yourself transported into a brain conglomerate where eels live as kings and the dolphins march time at a mach 3 consonant. Boxes have become live like curtains and the all maintaining sandpit of time is custard as a mole in a panther." Pondering these thoughts, Tobias Apple, wondered whether "Applied Transcendent Wireless Telegraphy in the Sub Primordial Context of the Neo Classical InterHoop" had been a wise choice this term.

****
Staying for a moment with the theme of the day, which seems to be terse kittens surrounded by peas on a bed of wild calligraphy, we must contend that the skylark in his dealings with the West, following the birth of Major Teacup Portcullis is neither contemporaneous nor duplicitous. Several examples can be given, include the pine tree arrest warrants issued for the notorious "Post-it Note Five".

****
Yes yes, almost lunch.

Oh Pescum'd waye,
the cherry osper'd sea.
Maye my stran dandeloin fly,
an' porter by the prostling baye.

Goode noighte

Two Names You Go By:
1. St Andrew of the Trampoline
2. Brenquantho

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now:
1. A semi-ironed two-step with an outer coat station equivalent
2. Shoes

Two Things You Would Want (or have) in a Relationship:
1. Quesperyness
2. Equidistance

Two Things You Should Do:
1. Clear the pandas from the roof
2. Finish card board space shuttle blue prints

Two Things You Want Very Badly At The Moment:
1. A Flagon of Besper
2. To enlist the help of Raymond Badger in the search for the Elusive Gesper

Two Things You Did Last Night:
1. Pondered the quintaine of Mars and the eternal fortune of Fosper's equation
2. Behaved like a puppy

Two Things You Hated Today:
1. The people who removed my carpet during lunch
2. The borix motion detector on the side-pipe of the latest tonics mospshine machine

Talked to:
1. Ted
2. Mrs Hektor

Two Things you're doing tomorrow:
1. Playing chess on the moon with Sting
2. Surrounding Barnstable with my army of trained Otters

Two longest recent car rides:
1. Borkswhistle to Warsaw
2. Chespoone-upon-the-Twosper to Mesperington-on-Sea

Two Favourite Holidays:
1. Three weeks camping in Freddie Mercury's moustache
2. Harvesting Moons with Mr and Mrs Peterson

Two Favourite Beverages:
1. Nine
2. Thirty Seven

Two Things That Would Surprise You About Me:
1. I have tunic made of gold
2. I am able to control the weather

Two Jobs I Have Had In My Life that bored the crap outta me:
1. Whistle hunting in Mesopotamia
2. Wolf-guard-caption designer for the Parmesan Association of Fort Knox

Two Movies I would watch over and over:
1. Pepper, the Mountain Goat
2. The Ambassador and the Spoon.

Two Places I have lived:
1. Cleric-upon-Whespthorne
2. Denver Colorado

Two Favourite kinds of foods:
1. Monkeys
2. Parsnips

Two Places I'd rather be right now:
1. A shuttle ride from the second sun that sets on the cloud sky of Mrequestdone
2. On an alligator's back, with a nice cold gin and tonic.