No Rhyme or Reason

On A Wandering Minstrel’s Facebook page, I sometimes post poetry memes in between weekly blog posts. I was close to posting a meme about English words that are spelled alike but don’t sound alike when I thought of a poem from my book Event Horizon: “No Rhyme or Reason.” The lines of this poem end with words that rhyme visually but not aurally. Every time my son looks at this poem, he says something along the lines of, “It makes me crazy!!” or “It makes me feel homicidal!!” You get the drift 😆

So, rather than posting a meme, I thought I’d do an extra blog post this week and share, “No Rhyme or Reason.” Warning: side effects of this poem can include derangement, excitability, sudden bouts of anger, and Tourette’s-like symptoms.

No Rhyme or Reason

At the end of the musical show,
actor-singers took their bows.
Audience members planned on binging
number after number of singing,
and were pleased.  The hall was dingy
but for one gold, dangling thingy
holding lights.  Lars (a Swede)
rose and put on his coat of suede.
Lars walked out and went to have
dinner, stopping at home to shave
first.  The stubble was stiff and rough
After awhile, he managed to plough
through it and met a friend to eat.
Dinner was fair but wasn’t great.
Rolls were served but were tough,
probably due to overworked dough. 
Lars was part way through his steak
when some people started to freak
out, run to the window and swear—
not so pleasant to the ear.
Outside, there was some kind of winged
snake that flew around and singed
things with fiery blasts from the sky.
Lars ran out, which was quite risky,
went to a neighboring store, and somehow
stole some arrows with a bow.
Lars just had a vague plan, hinging
on a well-placed bow-shot winging
that snake.  Then Lars started to climb
up a fire escape, limb
over limb, to a lone
roof near where the snake had gone
last.  The snake continued to wreak
havoc, diving down to break
things with its tail, like an iron billet
flailing.  “I’ll make you a fillet!”
shouted Lars.  He aimed his bow.
He had no idea how
but he shot the wicked worm.
It was like a thunder storm
when it hit ground after its windy
free-fall.  Lars watched from the windy
roof.  Although a hero now,
Lars appeared on no talk show.
On that windy roof the draught
got through to Lars, who caught
cold or flu or other plague,
one that came with fierce ague.
Lars developed a horrid cough,
then fell into a moody slough.
Too soon, he was dead and gone.
Now our story is over and done.