The Forbidden Fruit

Note: This is for the A Mused Poetry Contest, so don’t read it, Chel.

At night you’ll see me gently creeping
With mom and dad hard a sleeping
In through laundry room door.
I open the bag of forbidden snacks –
Attractive gummies, laundry packs.

Then you’ll hear my lips a smacking,
My YouTube channel gaining backing
While I eat Tide Pods galore.
My mouth – it foams with Clean Breeze
And a few civilian casualties.

The tags may say “Danger!” “Warning!”
But industry tools are boring.
As a big attention whore
I munch and crunch on banned fare,
On poison beautiful, I’m well aware.

The Chel Owens A Mused Poetry contest (get it? A Mused, amused? Lol) has just now started up – and you can bet your bottom dollar I’m in it to win it! 😉 This week the theme was warning labels, and I went with the most necessary warning label of all: that added to Tide Pods after the Tide Pod Challenge.

Big Science Mountain

The mad scientist created
Freeze rays and said, “This is the best,
I dare anyone to beat me.
I’ll freeze banks and avoid arrest,
Then freeze folks at the city hall
To cause the government to fall.
Yessir, I’m gonna have a ball,
With my freeze ray and my money.

This poem was pooped out of somewhere for the Terrible Poetry Contest #55, “Big Rock Candy Mountain.” In order to do this, I had to read up on the song and found out it was supposed to be about Hobo Paradise. I wrote about Mad Science Paradise.

I chose this photo because all the science done in the 50’s and 60’s was mad science because they didn’t really care if they died from some insane exposure to chemicals or whatever.

Photo by Museums Victoria on Unsplash

Zodiac Killer – Terrible Poetry Contest

1 One derke and tempestuous Aprill night,
2 The shirreve clutched his herte in awful fright.
3 The licour of woman’s veynes bathed walls,
4 And with blodde the Ram of spring marked the halles.
5 The shirreve sees drawen to memorie
6 Another mordre with sign of Pisces,
7 Capricornne brot a deth most treasonous,
8 And dede man drowned, sign of Aquarius.
9 He seche and he trowe evidence,
10 But the Zodiac killer’s japed him since.
11 The shirreeve made many pilgrimages
12 To question witnesses in low corages
13 And find preve of the killer’s vileynye
14 To bring him to justise thurgh agonie.
15 Nonne can descrive circumstances of deth,
16 And all cry out hevynesse through bated breeth.
17 Upon giving up and laying to snoose,
18 He at last trowed the killer was Ted Cruz.

***

This poem does need some explaining, as it was written for Chelsea Owens’s weekly Terrible Poetry Contest.  This week, the theme was to parody a well-known, classic poem.  I chose Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales and parodied the opening passage.

Since I don’t actually speak middle English, I may have completely garbled my above poem.  I leave here a ‘translation’ so you can at least see what I intended to say.

1 One dark and stormy April night,
2 The sheriff clutched his heart in fright.
3 A woman’s blood covered the walls,
4 The sign of Ares was written in the halls.
5 The sheriff thought of memories,
6 Another murder under sign of Pisces,
7 Capricorn’s sign was a death most treasonous,
8 And dead man drowned, sign of Aquarius.
9 He sought and he thought of evidence,
10 But the Zodiac killer’s tricked him since.
11 The sheriff made many pilgrimages
12 To question witnesses in low spirits
13 And find proof of the killer’s vilainy
14 To bring him to justice through agony.
15 None can describe circumstances of death,
16 And all cry out sadness through bated breath.
17 Upon giving up and laying to snooze,
18 He at last realized the killer was Ted Cruz.

Lastly, if you don’t want to click on the link, the Ted Cruz reference was to a 2015-2016 meme that Ted Cruz was the Zodiac Killer.  It doesn’t make sense, and it’s not supposed to, but I find it funny as hell so there.

The Original Opening Scene to The Canterbury Tales:

1 Whan that Aprill, with his shoures soote
2 The droghte of March hath perced to the roote
3 And bathed every veyne in swich licour,
4 Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
5 Whan Zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
6 Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
7 The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
8 Hath in the Ram his halfe cours yronne,
9 And smale foweles maken melodye,
10 That slepen al the nyght with open eye-
11 (So priketh hem Nature in hir corages);
12 Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages
13 And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes
14 To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
15 And specially from every shires ende
16 Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
17 The hooly blisful martir for to seke
18 That hem hath holpen, whan that they were seeke.

Photo by Victor on Pexels.com