collaborative poetry hijinks! Hijinks I tells ya!

Good morning! If you're Canadian - and who isn't? - you're too polite to post poetry on your weblog. That's why you need an American to collaborate with, because they like to take the established order and throw into harbour like crates of tea. Dana of My Gorgeous Somewhere sent me a line (the eventual title of the piece below) and a challenge: Hey douchebag, write the next line! Or I'll kill you like a chicken! It's true, she actually said that. Please visit her site and say hello, because she and her site share properties of awesomeness.


When it comes to pant logic
by Dana and Palinode

I’m what the Pee-aich-Dees call a sophist.
But don’t confuse me with a sofa-ist
or you’ll end up in someone’s storeroom,
sealed off from all the action.

I’ve got a syllogism or two in dungarees.
Put them through the wash without checking
the pockets. Now their transitive properties
have bled into my tees and undies.

Fortunately, my all-over-body tattoo
makes a persuasive proposition for nudity,
every inch of my person its own hard argument.

But wouldn’t stripping down just be rude?
Four out of five respondents think so
given my unseemly display for the focus group.
(That’s what I called it to get them in the room.)

Let’s make a fault of honesty and highlight my
sad sack with a magnifying lens on a summer day.
A tilt of the wrist permits glass to concentrate
rays in areas that otherwise would grow moldy,

sour as a fart trapped in a suitcase recovered
with Jaws of Life from a gone-wrong home invasion.
Alleged farters always snick away from their crimes,
the evidence wafting behind them, an invisible

peacock’s tail. But I digress. My point is, when crafty
Ulysses peeled off his tunic and strapped his flank
to a sheep’s belly, he had the sense to wear his pants:
crisp, sensible, an inseam flat against thigh and calf,

all the way to inarguable cuffs: pants that saved his
entrails and marrowy bones, that tight ass with its
logic-gate. For this we should be thankful: these
tender mercies bestowed on those who, like you,

would lose your pants if they weren’t screwed on
or at least Velcroed (making for excellent tear-away
opportunities, especially at the grocery store, natch).
When I get rambling like this, the wax in my left ear

hardens to a plug and pops like a cork when I smack
my skull with a Nerf bat. What’s with you anyway? How
can you imply I’m anything less than a yeoman at his task,
pants-focused and slinging lines like bolts to the target?