Bach to basics

So, basking in the glow of misguided hubris -- is it good practice to start a piece with so? Perhaps we should ask the authority on grandiose opening statements -- I had decided to try my hand at some narrative verse, a retelling of the Irish myth of Clíodhna (it sounds more epic than the piece of future kindling actually is, trust me). Why that one? Well, for starters, there aren't six point oh two two times ten to the twenty-third versions of it, like there are of more culturally ubiquitous ones, I'm looking at you, Tithonus, you old bastard. Be happy the Hussein X Death Panel didn't Doc Brown its way back to ancient Athens.

"Um --"

As if immortality would be an obstacle to the

Awesome Power of Made In The USA.

Kneel before Zod!

Ending the first digression, for there will surely be a few more, thus, my subconscious is freer from worry about living up to the works of real poets of talent. For seconds, I'm quite classic (ed. note: boring as plain white toast) in my poetic taste which leads to the final 1/3, that there's a love & loss angle, and I'm pretty much a one-track pen (ed. note: monotonous) when it comes to that maddening crap, not counting unseen, pro-booze doggerel scribbled in the margins.

Anyway --

"Another stellar segue, genius."

Merci. After a few hundred amazingly poor lines, I'm at the point where I'm introducing, from one version of the myth, three brightly-colored birds -- the breath of black bird/black sun alchemy inconsistently tinting notwithstanding. Feeling even more hubristastic, I thought to myself, what a horrible world. Then I thought to myself, hey, three birds, three voices, subject and answers taking the form of hues both primary and secondary, let's make some pretend contrapuntal stanzas. Sadly, delusional theory is always more clever than practical application. Guess how many discarded jellybeans are in the jar, Waldo? Hey, where are you? Carmen Sandiego is not to be trusted! Those awful faux lime green ones are the extra poor efforts.

Oh well, back to uninterrupted blank verse.

Please, no jokes about the content being blank, as if I'm not already painfully aware. At least I have a jar full of jellybeans to ease the misery. And to show what a stand-up comic I am, in lieu of subjecting you to reading the fucking thing, such as it so far is, here's someone who's actually skilled at shooting fugues out of a canon.