Bad Case of Mondegreen

Chut, man, he’s got thee upturned syllogism logic. He’s also got a bad case of the Higgs-Boson blues. He’s got the anthropocene cold shoulder, and a slight case of thee reliquary saint’s joints and bone shards flu. His name is Smith.

All the while she’s about a mover, but Smith has got the worst case of mondegreen and all he hears is: eedda vadda voodda. Her name is Mary.

I tell you it makes no sense at all—and it’s so bad that this scene conflates with a litany of sea-green epistolaries. Nobody sends letters like this anymore—did they ever?—such a shame!

Mary reads “The Emperor of Ice-Cream.” She cuts-up the poem—then adds to it—so it reads: let queef queef be finale of streams / be downtown be the emperor of nice dreams.

Smith dips his cuticles in a bowl of dal makhani, and brainstorms tankas about Goa’s sacred cows. He coins neologisms galore (parenthetically including [cowfabulations!]). Then he gets a dose of thee Kipling throttle-wish and wants to whip a manservant for ole’ colonial times sake: the good old ruddy duddies, he laments. (This is a bad man, kiddies—steer clear!)

Light up the world with nicotine nabobs, Mary quips (and queefs) from her Moosetracks perch. Smith is past caring. He starts a freewrite—using his knife and the tamarind sauce—on the napkin tucked into his shirt collar.

He reads aloud: Harrumph, huzzah, and all that… extortion for freelancers and firefly friendly sky pies. Don’t shout ‘negatory’ before noon … oh, stop me if you’ve heard this one before…

Even though we haven’t heard it before, let’s not and say we did.

“I don’t quite understand about understanding poetry. I experience poems with pleasure: whether I understand them or not I’m not quite sure. I don’t want to read something I already know or which is going to slide down easily: there has to be some crunch.”

— John Ashberry