TWEEDLEDUM AND TWEEDLEDEE

“You like poetry?”

“Ye-es, pretty well—some poetry,” Alice said doubtfully.

From Reader #2

Michaelmas term is merrily skipping to a close, so my fellow Readers invited me back. They are so occupied. (Unlike Anthony, they’ve all got several post-nominals, and so there's very much academic work indeed.) Just before end of term, together we’ll light Pistrina’s Yule log. Our copy of Work of Human Hands, with all its tallowy botches and brittle prose, will make such splendid kindling!

Well, as we wait on the lip of Yuletide, don't you think some narrative poetry—and not an essay about Anthony and his enablers!—might be very much in order? Why, we haven't heard poetry at Pistrina since the Invitation to "The Lobster Quadrille." I found a poem much like some verses I heard repeated in another eerie place. Oh, really, it'll sound utter nonsense, yes, I know. But I do love nonsense so. The title is The Pooh-Bah and the Blunderer. (Its ending, alas! is very sad.)

The sky was raining on the cult,

Raining like cats and dogs:

He did his very best to fright

Two clueless theologues—

By causing leaks to drip upon

Their travel catalogues.

The earth was growling angrily,

Because she thought the sky

Should have poured down hot thunderbolts

To get the clerks to fly—

“It’s very rash of him,” she soughed,

“To keep them high and dry!”

The cult was broke as broke could be,

The pews were void as void.

You hardly spied a soul, because

Most souls had been annoyed

By tales so drear they might be found

In cases known to Freud.

The Pooh-Bah and the Blunderer

Were talking balderdash:

They wept like usurers to see

Such scarcity of cash:

“If only we could write a Book,”

They wished, “we’d have a bash!”

“If chapels with fat building funds

Were closed by next full moon,

Do you suppose,” the Pooh-Bah asked,

“That you could publish soon?”

“Indeedy,” said the Blunderer,

And joined him in this tune:

“O Suckers, come and buy his Book!”

The Pooh-Bah did entreat.

“A silly read, a selfish need

Your dollars aye will meet:

We both can squander all you have

(But won’t give a receipt).”

The eldest Sucker gaped at him

And nodded his assent:

The eldest Sucker wiped his drool

And took out his last cent—

As token of his loss of will

Amidst such devilment.

A flock of Suckers bleating crawled,

All eager to be shorn:

Their coats were rags, their faces smudged,

Their shoes were scuffed and worn—

And that was par, because, you see,

They fell for Pooh-Bah’s corn.

But many faithful ran away:

The Book, each sensed, was junk,

And by the score, they found the door

(The Duo’s surely sunk!),

For from Pistrina’s just critique,

All learned the Book was bunk.

The Pooh-Bah and the Blunderer

—The twain…oh, so non-U—

Conspired to unload the Book

Outside their poor purlieu,

While empty-headed Suckers sank

Upon an empty pew.

“The time has come,” the Pooh-Bah hissed,

“To gainsay many things:

The goofs—and gaffes—and reeling facts—

And ugly misspellings—

And how the Latin’s tommyrot,

And whence such dreck up springs:

“The Book, why, it’s…a monument:

It’s magisterial!”

Pistrina cried, “You’re wrong, you louse!

You mean ‘bacterial’:

It has the inner density

Of soggy cereal!”

The Pooh-Bah forced his unctuous grin

(As oils from Canòpus);

He clenched his candle, book, and bell

And—like a lagòpus—

He croaked, “Ye fiendish Readers! mark:

’TIS a magnum opus!”

“Contrariwise,” the Readers scoffed,

Bemused at his dismay.

“After such blunders, that would be

An untrue thing to say:

The dunce can’t write a paragraph

(He hasn’t the DNA)—

“His pages are befouled with slang

No scholar would have writ!”

The Blunderer said nothing but

“I do not care a whit:

Folks mayn’t a dominie adjudge,

Though he be full of sh—!”

“You have a point,” the Pooh-Bah shrieked,

“Men durst not criticize!

If they see wrong, they must shut up

And disbelieve their eyes.

But should they not, soon I’ll step in

To shame and demonize.”

“We’ve spilled the beans,” the Readers chimed,

“You’ve scarcely been to school;

Of scholarship and deep, deep thought

There’s not a molecule

In that bad Book replete with flaws,

Which good men ridicule.”

“O Readers,” spurned the Blunderer,

“I shall not pay you heed:

There’re fools enough in Traddieland,

Who—though they cannot read—

Will pimp the Book in cyberspace:

And that is all we need!”