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The Tale of Bumblesneer
(With apologies to Shel Silverstein)

In a time long ago and a valley not near
Lived a man, and his son, and their Gurt, Bumblesneer
Now Bumble's a Gurt, and like all Gurts that be
(Excluding the author, your own Kennyb)
Any Gurt in the world, no matter how much a sloth
Can spin a great tale, right out of whole cloth.
At the drop of a hat, on millions of topics
In settings like Kokomo Beach in the tropics
In far 'way Urkuzsk or the temples at Karli
While diving for fishes in farthest East Bali
Or the roads of the UK in thundering lorry -
a Gurt can always freestyle a good story.
And the longer you give it, the better it be,
Precise and exact and proportionately
I. E. if you give a Gurt double the time,
You're going to get (somehow) double the rhyme
Now double can mean it's just double the length
Though oftner than not, it's twice it's great strength
But as double-strength stories are nothing to fear
Let's get back to our anecdote of Bumblesneer.

As I mentioned, our Bumble, he lived with some others.
A man with his son, who had no other brothers.
The man's name was James Cracklebeak Flurty Jamaffin
(But he's known to his friends as Jimmy the Dolphin.
The tale behind this is itself quite a morsel,
And has something to do with his fin, which is dorsal).
The son's not important, but his name tell I will
His nick name is Willy, but his real name is Bill.
Now Jimmy the Dolphin and Willy were pleased
When they thought they could sit at the knobbly knees
of the Gurt and become full completely enthralled
with Bumblesneer and all the stories he told.
But little they knew, when Bumble was two,
Taken from his creche in Kalamazoo
In Sorshas red house of loose ladies he grew,
And from then all the stories he told were quite blue.

Quite a shock Bumble gave, when first he portrayed
Thematic components of stories he made.
His earliest tale was of Susie Marie
Who bartered for kittens the spreading of knees.
Particulars of this yarn are best left unsaid
(besides they require a visual), instead
I'll mention the title of another once told
"Reflections on Watching the Flower Unfold."
And before you mention that that sounds quite benign,
And the honor of all Gurts I try to malign,
recall that a bard will often incur
great pains to avoid a foul word or slur.
Euphemisms abound, and a nice word can mean
Near anything, especially something obscene.

(which this did, thank you very much).

Recovery was quick, mad dashes were made
to make Bumble clean up the stories he said.
They washed out his mouth, and rinsed it with soda;
Aversion they used: naked Abe Vigoda!
Burgessian methods by propping his eyes
and making him watch hours of Teletubb-i's (tm).
EST and shock therapy, pleading and crying,
To nothing came all the techniques they were trying.
Not even the visit from holy John Paul
with tall hat and incense and altar and all.

Though weeping and gnashing and hurly and burly,
still Bumble with stories to make good men turn surly.
He spoke of Pink Elliot, the man with two pricks,
Eccentricia Gallumbits of Eroticon 6.
Of houris from Holland and whores from Peru
Yohimbe, Spanish Fly, and raw oysters too.
He even told one tale with end so profane
I'd pen it, but paper would burst into flame!

Now there's one crucial note I think I must make
So away with the wrong idea you won't take.
He had no intention to cause misery,
Twas God and his rearing made him what he be.
It was his upbringing, no Mom and no Pop
He just couldn't help it, he just couldn't stop.

But to no ones surprise, the tales took their toll
"We have to do something to retain control."
Bill became popular in all the wrong places,
repeating blue stories to inappropriate faces.
Jimmy turned foul, no sense of decorum -
So one night they crept to the Sanctum Sanctorum
of Bumblesneer, hoping to catch unaware
the Gurt who's tall tales could uncurl curly hair
They saw in surprise, that even dreaming sweet
Bumble would draw stories with his feet!
Visions as complex as the words he would spin
and as rife with the underlying theme that was sin.
With hands quick and dextrous, with touch that was feather,
Jim hammered the lips of Bumblesneer together!
For extra good measure, Bill stapled his feet.
And with these cruel actions, thought themselves elite
For they thought with no media, no stories he'd tell
But it turned out that Bumblesneer's psychic as well!

Now from morning til evening and all through the night
In darkness and dimness and even bright light
the tales of the Gurt resound in their heads
With no place for respite, not even warm beds.

The teaching, I guess, this poem should encompass
Will be: "Try never to start up a rumpus
O'er stories you're listening to you think are amoral -
For recall that it gets rather worse than just aural."

-kennyb



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