Friday, April 23, 2010

Waste me, Existentialist Daddy!


April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land
On the plus side, April 3rd is Alec Baldwin's birthday
Bin gar keine russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch
Yeah, that's right
I can speak German
When we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's,
(My cousin had his very own archduke)
He took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, "Marie,
Marie, hold on tight."
"My name is Winslow!" I shot back
At that exact moment, my cousin fell off the sled
Imagine our merriment
When with a comical look on his face
He landed in some barbed wire
Later, there were muffins.
Mon semblable,—mon frère!
I will show you fear in a handful of dust
Try not to sneeze

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Tire Barn


Note: For all you Jon Crum fans, we wrote this one together on the phone while I was standing at Tire Barn, and Jon probably came up with more stuff for it than I did, including the use of the word "larn". But he refused to post it under his own name, because he is so humble. Also, Jon read me the entire thing of T.S Eliot's The Wasteland, except he skipped two pages by accident, so maybe that was why the plot didn't make sense.

One part was pretty cool though. "She smoothes her hair with automatic hand" Why does this woman have an automatic hand? Is she some sort of cyborg? Eliot, if you're still alive, and reading this, that's some good shit. So that was cool. Also, it turns out April is the cruelest month, or possibly the coolest - not sure, the phone reception was pretty bad.

So, without further ado, here is the poem, mostly written by Jon. Have you ever noticed how when somebody is introducing something, they say "without further ado" when they're about to start. But, if they still have lots of crap to get through in their introduction, they never say "here's some more ado" or "with further ado". I guess "ado" is not a thing you want to have lots of. People are generally pretty proud of their lack of ado. It's a good state to be devoid of ado. I guess Shakespeare also wrote that play "Much Ado About Nothing" staring Keanu Reeves I believe. But again, if you'll notice in that title, the ado was all for naught. Nobody ever has important ado, or tells their kid, "Sorry, Jimmy, I can't make it to your little league game, I have all kinds of ado to bust through this weekend."

Anyway, now that I'm through with this note, I'm kind of embarassed of the Tire Barn poem to tell the truth. Jon kinda dropped the ball on that one, poetrywise. He really could have done a better job. But you know how Jane Austen fans read the noevels she never finished, and all the crap she wrote for relatives and stuff? Just consider this like that. Not part of Jon's official oeuvre, but still of interest for true fans of Jon's work.

Also, I would just like to state, while I'm thinking of it, that Jane Austen was NOT a proto-feminist. Sorry, proto-feminists, Jane Austen was not one of you. If you jerks would actually read her novels you would see she had a lot deeper thoughts about sex relations than ever goes through any of your little heads. Just think about Emma. She's a real bitch for most of that book, until she realizes Mr. Knightley is cool and she should marry him, because he loves her enough to correct her. See? That's not a real feminist ending there, Feminists. Maybe you should just get your grubby mitts off my Jane Austen. Oh I'm sorry, did I hurt your feelings, Feminists? Are you going to have to form a support group? Well, you shouldn't have messed with Jane.

Also, to people who liked Pride and Prejudice, please stop writting sequels to it. The universe was perfectly fine without any sequels to Pride and Prejudice. Why mess around with a perfectly fine universe? And yes, the zombie thing was kind of funny, but it was a bore to read.

But to get back to Jane Austen the Feminist, the sad thing is I have actually met real life girls who have been brainwashed into thinking Jane Austen was a proto-feminist. And the sad part is that they are girls, and I follow a strict diet of chivalry, so I cannot punch them in their faces. But it's too bad somebody (possibly their parents or legal guardians) didn't punch them in their faces at some point to teach them not to seduced by feminists who want to steal Jane Austen from the rest of us. Oh, that makes me so angry!

Anyway, this is the poem I wrote about tire barn:


Here I am at Tire Barn
Where I don't belong
It seems that I will never larn
It seems that I am ever wrong

Oh tire barn! Oh tire barn!
How I hate you so
It seems that I will never larn
It seems that I will never know

Friday, April 9, 2010

A GHOST!


Jon Crum (with his spouse)
Entered the house
His spouse
Wore a blouse

They were married anew
But his spouse was blue
Because she had the flue
And Jon was untrue,

When he had said
He had a tulip bed
(This he said
Before they wed)

"Fix me some toast!"
Said Jon. "Or a roast.
When suddenly, they were attacked by a lemur!
Jon killed the lemur with a stick from his compast heap!
"Scratch one lemur!" Jon said.
But his wife sobbed
Because she liked lemurs.

"Clean the lemur blood!" Jon chanted
And then everybody from the whole neighborhood came into the house
And they all chanted "Clean the lemur blood! Clean the lemur blood!"
And soon they had formed a mob, and raised the dead lemur up on a staff
And set it alight
And it burned in the night sky
And Jon's wife sobbed for her lost innocence
And she finally made Jon his toast
But they set that on fire, too.
And several drunk people began to dance the Macarena
Until Jon's collection of glass unicorns caught fire
And then the party kind of broke up.

But the lemur came back from the dead
It was . . .
A GHOST!

Sunday, April 4, 2010

a poem about love (with notes)


you loved me
we loved each other
but now you are dead

Notes: This was a poem of some type about love. You can tell because the first two lines use the word "love" and also "loved". The poem is probably about a girl, although it could also be about a dog or cat, or something else that dies, since that is the thing that happens at the end (death). It could be about a fish. They often die. However, it is probably not about a fish. The poem is short, consisting of only three lines. This would lead us to believe maybe the poem IS about a fish, since why would the author write more than three lines about a fish? If it was about a girl or child or dog or cat or horse it might be longer, but it is clearly about a fish. So really the object of the poem is to ask whether a fish can feel love. The answer is yes. It is sad when a fish loves someone and then dies. This is the emotion that the poem captured. The sad emotion of a dead fish. Although a closer reading of the poem will reveal that the poem is not per se about the emotions of the dead fish, but about the one who loved the dead fish. Why would somebody love a dead fish? This is what is called "poetic license" which is when the author makes us believe stuff that clearly is not true. Another example of poetic license in a poem about fish is in Dr. Suess's poem "One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish" because what are the odds that there would be exactly two fish - one blue and one red? Dr. Suess clearly did not know how to write a poem about a fish in the same manner as the author of the present fish poem. In conclusion, love is an emotion we do not often attribute to fish. But this poem makes us do that. That is why the emotional effect is so devastating, and also why the poem should not be read to small children or teenagers or old people or women.

Limited Options


My options are limited marriage-wise
However many fish in the pond
The only girls who like me
Are rich and gorgeous and blonde

I'd like to go out with some girl
Who's homely and comes from a farm
Unfortunately ugly-type woman
Are completely immune to my charm

So don't consider me shallow
If the only fish I can hook
Is some splendiforous beauty
Who likes to clean and cook

I've tried to find something that doesn't
Look great in a cocktail dress
But ugly people just don't like me
So I'll have to settle for less