A Thread In Time Bares Nine.

Hi Guys,
What a fun site this is. I'm so glad you've all taken to me, and adore me so much. I'm currently single(if any hunky men are interested, but please don't tell Matt. Thanks. I don't need that dork hitting on me...my God! what if he writes me one of his love poems??!!').

Anyway, a lot of you have been asking me, 'Ima, you are so intelligent, and such a brilliant writer, what are some of your favorite poems, and writing styles?' And while this is an obvious attempt to pry into my writing abilities so that you can steal my ideas and profit greatly from them, I will still enlighten you(and perhaps, sue you later for copyright infringement).
Anyway, here is a listing of my favorite poetic pieces, and a brief summary of their meanings.

1. The Ferns of Pennsyltucky by Ernesto Flatbottom III.
    In this lovely, one line, epic, Flatbottom explores the intricate details of the meat industry and it's effects on the ever-increasing bell curve of trichinosis cases(as drawn up by Lewland Fluleggs). Flatbottom uses an uncommon technique, called Letteritis, in which only the alphabetic characters of 's' and 'p' are employed, but pulls it off beautifully. Here is a sample: 'Sssppspspsp psss spppsssp p s...' As you can see from this example, trichinosis has run rampant in Canton, Ohio, and without an antidote, people are not feeling too good. Ultimately, Flatbottom discovers that Fluleggs bell curve of trichinosis was actually a drawing of some cheetahs(which wasn't very good), but the poem has continued to invoke interest in the meat industry practices, so he just left it. Eventually, Fluleggs sued Armour for 11 million dollars(1100 rubles) for putting actual beef in his hotdog, and was awarded seven pence(1200 Euros), and purchased Flatbottom's sofa at a reasonable price.

2. Nine Toes for Escobar by Floppy McGuigan IV.
    Classic piece of metaphorical transgression, embellished beautifully by the consistent use of the word 'flugelhorn.' I have read this poem 618.24 times in my life, and I still cannot decipher if McGuigan's protagonist, Flippy McTeetles, actually HAS nine toes, is searching for nine toes, or found nine, severed toes awash on a Connecticut beach front, but that's the beauty of the writing, and it's ambiguity. My favorite lines are such:

'What are these little things upon this sand encrusted area with water nearby?
 I have looked for something, minus one, and yet it's down below my thigh...….flugelhorn.'

Beautiful.

3. A List of My Favorite Herring by Leo Toystory.
   Tolstoy's cousin, Toystory, wrote this in an angry tirade after Tolstoy sold a million copies of Anna Karenina while his autobiography, Meddling With Cows, bombed horribly in the Amazon bookstore in 1792. And while it may seem to be a simple listing of his favorite fish dishes, and breeds of mackerel, it actually goes much deeper, and once, when Verne Lundquist(then working for Poetry Poop Weekly) interviewed him, he was quoted as saying: 'I hate trying to get that worm on the hook.'
Here is a brief summary of this gorgeous piece:

                   '1. Herringbone.
                    2. Flounder.
                    3. Baked Herring In a Light Bernaise Sauce.
                    4. Sorry, I'm Having Trouble 'Herring' You. (He was also quite the comedian, even in such serious pieces).
                   5. Pass the Salt.'

As you can plainly see, this goes far beyond it's fishy demeanor, and some critics have compared it favorably to Melville's Moby Dick, just without all of the good writing, and suspense.

4. Marmalade Gets In a Jam by Jimmy 'Knockknees' Longhinder III.
This whimsical vignette combines the beauty of poetry with tantalizing olfactory sensations of a barnyard, using the first 'scratch and sniff' method of writing since Beanyon's 'A Whiff of Excrement' in 1776.
It's the story of a young Amish lad(Clarence 'Marmalade' Jones), from Peru, that dials into a gelatinous talk show called In a Jam(thinking it's for thugs who are in trouble), and confesses to the murder of 6 chickens from Paraguay. The host, Velma McTickles, secretly recites an old Russian recipe for Marmalade Squares to him, as a smokescreen, which alerts the KGB. Velma is then arrested for Misuse of the Verb 'Squalid', and spends 11 years in a Turkish prison lamenting Jones' call. In the end they get married, until Marmalade takes a howitzer shot to the nose when he debates the use of cream vs. milk with an angry Verne Lundquist at a Lemon Festival.
Tragic love story set amid the turbulence of the Ziegfeld Follies.

5. Shopping With the Hoods With a Showy Stealing by Weird Al Yankovic.
Yankovic's first parlay into parodying poetry was a brilliant success. Based on the actual poem Stopping By the Woods On a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost, Yankovic hits a home run with such lines as:

'Whose boots are these, I think I know,  
His credit card's the one I stole!
He will not see me shopping here,
Until his creditors ring his ear!'

and,

'This scarf is lovely, argyle, and cheap,
 But I have other peeps to thief,
 And things to do with wayward sheep,
 And things to do with wayward sheep.'

Oh Al, you crack us up.

6. The Gift of Murman by Bob.
Probably my favorite poem of all time, this was actually the basis for O. Henry's The Gift of the Magi, as he thought this version(written in 1704 BCE(I'm not sure when the 'E' came into effect, but...) was outdated, and quite silly.
Anyway, it's the story of a young waif, Beatrice Flophouser III, who purchases some chicken feed as a special Christmas gift for her sweetheart, Milton 'Biggie' Valasquez IX, to surprise him, while he purchases some herring to surprise her. Little does Beatrice know that Biggie had eaten his beloved chickens the previous day, as he was quite hungry, and little does he know that Beatrice is actually allergic to herring, as he never listens to her when she talks. They end up giving the presents to each other on Christmas day, and there are many tears when they tell one another what has happened, but then the entire point is rendered moot, as it is 1704 BCE, and Christ has not even been born yet!, so they can't have Christmas yet anyway. Anyway, Biggie eats the chicken feed, as he's still hungry, and Beatrice becomes quite mad with him, as she had intended to return it to the store for a full refund, and Milton is relegated to the couch for 11 months. Beautiful, yet tragic, love story.

Anyway, Kids, these are some of my favorite poems. Thank you for asking. Next week, I will be reviewing my favorite sock types, as one writer, Cheerie, had submitted this question in the form of an interrogatory statement last week. Thank you Cheerie.

But for now, keep writing, and I'll sue you all later...I mean, SEE you all later.

Danka,

Ima.