Villonaud of the Barflea Bard
by Uche Ogbuji
Drink ye a toast for the brazen flea
Our cardinal of scratchy pen;
The river Souse conveys us free
To rapids of our rudest pun;
We’ll pay the toll of morning pain—
We’ll redde Dithyrambic due
In crapulous extremity
The Daphnis fine for drunken letch;
To raise our song in dotted itch
Yield bruckle skin to miching flea.
Maenads are snarling their decree:
‘So who d'you think you are,’ they howl
‘To seal your bonnet from the bee?’
Those bouncers at the Muses’ hill
Take down attendance in their hall—
You’re conscript to the gathering
To rouse the skaldic clan again
With clinking roar of brannigan.
Yield bruckle skin to miching flea.
So never mind the Pharisee
(Or Gospel calumny thereof)
And have no fear of gallows tree;
We’re hardly commonplace riff-raff
And Justice rarely lays it rough
Where honey drips from rascal quill;
Let patron Saint Villon attest
To tolerance of rhyming pest.
Yield bruckle skin to miching flea.
Li Bai, carousing wit of Tang
Stretch forth to bless this drowning spree—
Admit no stint of venery;
Our fancies, smoked from boozy bang,
Yield bruckle skin to miching flea.
