Let they who have shell-likes to hear, hark 'n' heed!
All you
would-be Chaucerian pardoners need
is my metrical
handbook of penance to read.
Let all sins of
the fathers descend to their seed!
Who cops to
commissions of copy-cat crimes
shall be shut
up in cupboards with five angel chimes.
Who sins with a
widow not yet under vows
shall ride herd
on bass bumbasses sounded by sows.
Who investigates
entrails of sturgeon or gar
shall be
tethered to cocktail drums, aures
ajar.
Whose aim
proves amiss when engaging spittoons
shall acquire,
by rote, two and twelve dudelsack tunes.
Who consumes
raw crustacea as cure for catarrh
shall reside
deep inside an electric guitar.
Who intimidates
dwarves with a porbeagle bone
shall attend a
Three Flexatones concert…alone.
Who’d harmonize
not to “Bei Mir Bist Du Schoen”
shall arrange same
for glockenspiel – verse and
refrain.
Who loiters at
seances, irking young girls,
shall be
hitched to a humming top powered by squirr’ls.
Who covets his
kinswoman’s nursemaid’s third daughter
shall finger an
ingungu deep under water.
Who aggravates
hermits on Hallowmas Eve
shall perform
on a juice harp a recitative.
Who engages in
practices arch or demonic
shall secretly
tape The Kazoo Philharmonic.
Who pilfers a
poor box, withdrawing a dime,
shall retune
seven lithophones five at a time.
Who dismembers his
priest with a circular saw
shall erect
seven mirlitons using no straw.
Who’s
chronic’lly late with his booster club dues
shall blow on a
noseflute “The Saint Louis Blues.”
Who into
idolatry hazards a foray
shall glue in
his earshaft an oboe d’amore.
Whose
knee-to-groin thrusts makes of basses sopranos
shall sleep
three score weeks beneath player pianos.
Who postpones his
toilette until late afternoon
shall be
strapped, par hazard, to a Turkish qanun.
Who rustles his
grand-nephew’s prize-winning cattle
shall chant
twelve Te Deums astraddle The Rattle.
Who perjures
himself in a courtroom of law
shall play
medleys from Cats on a musical
saw.
Who behaves as
a scoundrel (no ‘if’s, ‘but’s or ‘and’s)
shall be forced
to play Theramin using no hands.
Who Q-tips his
ears more than once or twice daily
shall render
Trane’s “Giant Steps” on ukulele.
Who dabbles in
pyramid schemes or payola
shall bypass my
giant Amati viola.
Who scandalous
rumors refuse to quash
shall master
the washboard while doing the wash.
Who yields to
temptations to unlicensed sex
shall be bound
to a xylophone set up by Czechs.
Who enters a
cloister with ill-fitting togs
shall audition
yueh ch’ins pick’d, pluck’d…pounded!
– by dogs.
Who expresses
obscenities starting with ‘f’
shall
accommodate trough zithers till he goes deaf.
This handbook
of penance has come to an end.
What remains?
That its strictures be roundly “Amen!”d.
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