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La Erendida, or The Whimsical Brat (Old Possum's Book, "The Rum Tum Tugger")
La Erendida is a troublesome plant: If you offer her Darwin, she would rather
have Kant. When you serve up Kant, her taste turns to
Hegel, But when you proffer Hegel, she's enamored
of Woolf. If you set her up with James, she'll gravitate
to Blake; If you gravitate to Blake, she'll prefer Mark
Twain! Yes, La Erendida is a troublesome plant—
But there isn't any call for me to shout it: For she will think
As she do think And there's no doing anything about it!
La Erendida is a terrible tease: For when she answers, "Yes," it's a qualified
"No"; And she bats about a question with a cat's-paw
ease, And a Chesire-cat grin, and a lilting tremulo;
Yet there's nothing to be got by "Your opinion, please?"
Her mind is like a poem—with a stanza left to go!
Yes, La Erendida is a terrible tease— And there isn't any use for you to doubt it:
For she will do What she do do
And there's no doing anything about it!
Song to the Jellicle Brats: A.J., J.S., A.H. (Old Possum's Book, "The Song of the Jellicles")
Jellicle Brats are quite petite (All right, that means they're rather small)
Jellicle Brats have dancer's feet (They move with grace at the waltzing ball).
Jellicle Brats: one plays the trumpet Jellicle Brats: and trills the flute
Jellicle Brats will eat a crumpet (If Sarah bakes it—so that one's moot!)
Jellicle Brats reflect precisely; Jellicles like their questions BIG.
(Nevertheless, some write concisely Their words do no waltzing; they stamp out a jig!)
Jellicle Brats take up Woolf's outlook
Jellicle Brats recite Sun Tzu Jellicle Brats can play Iago
(Jellicles play Othello, too!)
And until the Jellicle Moon appears They watch their manners and bide their time.
Jellicles don't alert their peers, Jellicles never give a sign!
They're harmless, it seems, as the sunlit bowers,
They soothe like a drowsy afternoon, Reserving their Clytaemnestrian pow'rs
To pounce by the light of the Jellicle Moon!
(I'm tellin' ya, boys, be careful . . .)
Jellicle Brats aren't fond of fruitflies Jellicle Brats are fond of song
Jellicle Brats aren't things to misprize See that you do no Jellicle wrong!
For then, by the light of the Jellicle Moon They'll raise themselves up in a Jellicle pack
And Jellicly teach you the meaning of doom
The sly, un-defendable, ego-unmendable, Heart-stopping Jellicle counter-attack!
At Last Taylor Bradshaw Explains Herself
(by Means of Her Inner Victorian)
(This one's ALL my fault . . . with a little help from Robert Herrick [1591 -- 1674])
'Tis not ev'ry day that I Fitted am to speechify.
No, but when another fills My loquacious panicles
Full of IRE, then I will, Prophoretically, spill.
Thus, enflamed, my thoughts are sped, Like the Sibyl's, from my head.
Hearken, then, O Ian O Lee! I could take ye down in three!
If, instead, composed I be, Myself, 'tis owing—not to thee!
Gabriel Ladd: Deuteronomy (I suppose there's some connection to Old Possum's Book, "Old Deuteronomy")
Gabriel Ladd: Deuteronomy (I suppose there's some connection to Old Possum's Book, "Old Deuteronomy")
Gabriel Ladd: Deuteronomy (I suppose there's some connection to Old Possum's Book, "Old Deuteronomy")
Gabriel Ladd has not lived a long time; He's the dangling end of the temp'ral succession.
So why celebrate him in this seedy rhyme, What nugget of fame is his proper possession?
Well, Gabriel Ladd has lived through nine lives
Or more—I am tempted to count ninety-nine Of the books by which Integral prospers and
thrives, Which account for the life of the lives in
his mind. And here, as I pass, I'll reveal my metonomy
"Young" Gabriel Ladd is quite old— old as Old Deuteronomy!
And Old Deuteronomy sits in the street, He sits in the High Street on market day
Observing the welter of deeds and of speech, And weighing, as ever, the just thing to say.
And when sheer disputation o'erpasses the kerb
The villagers put up a notice: road closed; So that nothing untoward may chance to disturb,
Deuteronomy's rest, his contemplative pose, When engaged in arranging his inner economy.
And so, once again, I'll reveal my metonomy, We're transfigur'd as memories in Old Deuteronomy!
Of the Dire Confrontation of the Ians and Cozzetticos,
and of the Intervention of the Great Reynoso Brat
(Old Possum's Book, "Of the Aweful Battle of the Pekes and the Pollicles . . .")
Young Ian and Cozetto, as everyone knows, Are proud and implacable passionate foes;
So when Ian breathes "Yea," Cozzetto sniffs, "No."
And the Ladds and the Lees, although most Tutors say
That they're solid as Slate, yet any old day— If they're Gottied enough—will join in the
fray Then they
Yack yack yack yack Yack yack YACK YACK
'Til the Tutor shows signs of a heart attack.
Now on the occasion I'm bound to report Parelius had parried Cozzetto's retort
By quoting Augustine (his usual forte), To which she replied with an audible snort—
Which the cowering Tutor played off as a joke, (While he wished for a chance to slip out
for a smoke)— As all over the room glances started to meet,
Then belligerent glares that proclaimed "No Retreat!"
(But for Taylor and Erin, who stared at their feet)
While Cozzetto and Ian both rose from their seats
And started to Yack yack yack yack
Yack yack YACK YACK 'Til the Tutor felt sure of a heart attack.
Now our Ian, though people may say what they please,
Is but half-Integral—he speaks theolog-ese. So the class theists—both of them—rose
up as one, Invoking the Spirit, and Father and Son,
Intending to finish what Ian had begun. And their eyes they rolled and they waived
their fists, And they called down curses on materialists.
Now Cozzetto shrinks not from the bare-fist meme:
And differs from "Stiletto" by a mere phoneme! So she led off at once, putting on a sly smirk,
With her mildest jibe, to wit: "Ian, you jerk!" So it was
Yack yack yack yack Yack yack YACK YACK
And the Tutor prayed for a heart attack.
Now the Tutor was poised on the verge of tears, As the fruit-fly mamas stopp'd their larvae's
ears, But in Great Reynoso, alone in her seat,
There swell'd righteous ire, and a gathering heat.
So she rose up in anger and ended the fight, With Kant in her left hand, Rousseau in her
right: "Wake up the pure savage that dwells in your
heart; "Compassion his norm, imitation his art,
"Forget calculation, seek Goodness as Law "Let go fake religion, make duty your all!
"For they are not civil who love piety. "But vanquishing drivel, just will themselves
free." And such was her sentiment, such was her plea:
Go seek self-salvation like good bourgeoise!
And when Taylor and Erin looked up from their feet
Every last Brat was plumped back in his—or her—seat!