[Vision2020] Our resident blogstalker, dry flies, and poetry

[Joan Opyr]

Dear Visionaries,
  
If you don’t care for poetry (or somewhat esoteric jokes), then please delete now.  I’m just interested to see if our perpetual blogstalker gets this email, gets the joke, and then cribs it for use in one of his screeds.  I tossed out a little dry-fly to him yesterday via my first post on progressive libertarianism, and he rose to it like a trout in a brook.  Very fishy, don’t you think?
  
Anyhow, in the spirit of “Scareway to Heaven” and the many other parodies with which I’ve tormented you, I offer you my take on Lewis Carroll’s “The Hunting of the Snark.”
  
Joan Opyr/Auntie Establishment
www.auntie-establishment.com  
  
PS: I do believe that poetry is good for you.  Just not necessarily my poetry.

PPS: This poem, like most poems, is best if read aloud.
  
  
"The Hunting of the Narc: an Agony in One Fit"
By Lewis Carroll
With minor modifications by Auntie Establishment
  
"Just the place for a Narc!" the Portly Preacher cried,
     As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
     By a finger entwined in his hair.
  
"Just the place for a Narc!  I have said it twice:
     That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Narc!  I have said it thrice:
     What I tell you three times is true."
  
The crew was complete: the Preacher’s son--
     A maker of half-truths and conceits--
A Lawyer, an Ad-man, an ex-Cambridge don--
     And a Partner, to pass out the treats.
  
This Partner-in-crime, whose skill was immense,
     Might perhaps have won more than his share--
But a Banker, engaged at enormous expense,
     Had the whole of their cash in his care.
  
There was also a Beaver that paced on the deck,
     Or would sit reading books in the bow:
And had often (the Preacher said) saved them from wreck,
     Though none of the Elders knew how.
  
There was one who was famed for the number of things
     He forgot when he entered the ship:
His wife and his God, his wit and his wings,
     And the faith he had bought for the trip.
  
He had many boxes, all carefully packed,
     With a name painted clearly on each:
But, since the name was not his own, in fact,
     They were all left behind on the beach.
  
The loss of his faith hardly mattered because
     He had such high hopes when he came,
A school, and a church, and a college there was,
     But he had wholly forgotten his name.
  
He would answer to "Hi!" or to any loud cry,
     Such as "Fry me!" or "Fritter my wig!"
To "What-you-may-call-um!" or "What-was-his-name!"
     But especially "Thing-um-a-jig!"
  
While, for those who preferred a more forcible word,
     He had different names from these:
His intimate friends called him "Kiss the hind-ends,"
     And his enemies "Stinky toe-cheese."
  
"His form is ungainly--his intellect small--"
     (So the Preacher would often remark)
"But his typing is perfect!  And that, after all,
     Is the thing that one needs in a Narc."
  
He would joke with hyenas, returning their stare
     With an impudent wag of the head:
And he once met a Liberal and bought him a heer,
     "Just to keep up its spirits," he said.
  
He came as a Blogger: but owned, when too late--
     And it drove the poor Preacher half-mad--
He could only half-bake his thoughts, I may state,
     For no brain matter was to be had.
  
This last of the crew needs especial remark,
     Though he looked an incredible dunce:
He had just one idea--but, that one being "Narc,"
     The Plump Preacher engaged him at once.
  
He came as a Blogger: but gravely declared,
     When the ship had been sailing a week,
He could only kill Beavers.  The Preacher looked scared,
     And was almost too frightened to speak:
  
But at length he explained, in a tremulous tone,
     There was only one Beaver on board;
And that was a tame one he had of his own,
     Whose death would be deeply deplored.
  
The Beaver, who happened to hear the remark,
     Protested, with tears in its eyes,
That not even the rapture of having a Narc
     Could atone for that dismal surprise!
  
It strongly advised that the Blogger should be
     Conveyed in a separate ship:
But the Preacher declared that would never agree
     With the plans he had made for the trip:
  
Navigation was always a difficult art,
     Though with only one ship and one bell:
And he feared he must really decline, for his part,
     Undertaking another as well.
  
The Beaver's best course was, no doubt, to procure
     A second-hand dagger-proof coat--
So the Ad-man advised it--and next, to insure
     Its life in some Office of note:
  
This the Banker suggested, and offered for hire
     (On moderate terms), or to sell,
Two excellent Policies, one Against Fire,
     And one Against Damage from Hell.
  
Yet still, ever after that sorrowful day,
     Whenever the Blogger was by,
The Beaver kept looking the opposite way,
     And appeared unaccountably shy.Get more from the Web.  FREE MSN Explorer download : http://explorer.msn.com
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