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The Ides of March

by Chris "Childe Harold" Oakley
"The Ides of March," a gnarled old hag did say,
Would be a weird and scary sort of day:
A head that wore the mauve imperial crown,
Might find his colleagues keen to tear it down.
Yet though proud Caesar had such stuff to dread,
And maybe wished that he had stayed in bed,
A grimmer fate awaited Poesie,
When Henrey in the sixties came to be.
Around that place where Brentish babes appear
The Muses must have cowered full of fear:
Their trembling ghostly hands all yellow stain'd,
From cigarettes inhaled in endless chain.
"'Tis not so bad," fair Clio might have said;
 (Assurance wasted on the other girls,
 Who, stressful, feel that they are 'bout to hurl),
"'Tis years until this tiny infant head
Can spoil our day with rhyming bad and crass,
That makes McGonagall appear like class;
So let us not be fazed by this young dude,
And make the most of our sweet interlude!"
Tho' sweet and nice the pause was all too short,
As Danny's wordish lore is swiftly taught
By doting parents who did not quite know,
The beastly end to which such arts can go.

In measure bold, and way ahead of time,
From childish lips the young lad issues rhyme;
A verse, where painted with a fright'ning skill
Is ugsomeness enough to make one ill.

Parnassus echoes with the dismal sound,
And arty sisters, fearful, go to ground.
But Hermes (he who holds the snaky staff),
Does wryly smirk, and then does start to laugh,
Quoth he, "This tortured song, tho' short on style,
Does bring my godly chops to mirthful smile,
And tho' the tale be gruesome, foul and wrong,
Mayhap this crazy, queasy kind of song,
A sponsor from th'Elysian fields will find
Who's strong of stomach, and is broad of mind.

Alack! No wordsmiths wish their hard-won fame,
Be turn'd to bitt'rest infamy and shame:
The minstrels, bards and playwrights do not queue
To gladly have renown flush'd down the loo.

The godly messenger does sling his hook
And leave the stuck-up wordsmiths to their books:
For Hades beckons as a likely source,
Of souls more sordid, vile and coarse.

The quest is easy, as is soon reveal'd
An English Lord upon a danksome field:
With twenty whores around him in a knot,
He greets the messenger with pistol shot.

"Lord Byron! Yes! Of course! The very man!
To patronise the youthful poet Dan!"
The god with chuckle sees his supine prize,
Debauched as usual, red and bleary-eyed.
(But just in case his Lordship might say "no",
He gets him pissed and high on special "snow").

EPILOGUE

This tale does aim to show in pithy line,
How are the fates of man and god entwined,
And how, by guile and want of sobriety,
'Twas possible to have a Byron Society.

[Danny's reply]