by Danny "Don Juan" Henrey
An eerie stillness sank upon the erstwhile frantic scene, as if a Sorcerer’s withered yet magisterial hand had plunged abruptly into the whirlpool of debauchery. The deep ruby wine ceased to flow, the roasted viands, lucent gels, sirops and gleaming aspic delicacies were discarded half-consumed, the lascivious tanglings of damsel and poet uncoiled in mid ecstasy, and the soft airs of flutes descended in tone until they were lost in the raw, menacing drone of Egyptian Anubis horns, the ancient prelude to many an act of darkness and desperation. The cold, disdainful visages of the Jackal-gods peered down, mocking the mortal throng huddled in the echoing atrium of the magnificent temple. Each face froze in an attitude of fear, each heart beat an unheard message of terror and helpless solitude. An awful figure rose, clad only in tatty tweeds, golden jock strap and scuffed brogues, stared about himself with a Satanic, deranged leer, and intoned these talismanic words:
In Washington did Kubla Dan
An ugsome Burger King decree:
Where Ron, the Sacred Wally, ran
A nation unintelligible to man
Or even you or me.
So twice five tons of politic dung
Daily to the walls and towers clung:
And there were bureaux dark with fighting talk,
Where oft was opined: ‘Khomeini must we kill!’
And Kubla forthwith fled the Land of Bork,
To that sunny southern spot, Charlottesville.
But Oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart ol’ Madison Av.!
A savage place! With lonely cell enchanted
By rowing photos, of past glory haunted,
A Faustus waiting for his liberty!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if his Aston in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced:
Amid whose swift half-intermitted bursts
Medical textbooks vaulted like rebounding hail,
And Genghis Schulze rode forth in search of tail:
Forsaking eye-strain, milk and cookies
To worship at the altar of Nookie.
Five miles kerb-crawling with a mazy motion
Through Fresher parties the horny med stud ran,
Then glimpsed a vision unparalleled to man,
A damsel with dulcet eyes, and bod. to match!
Cries G.S.: ‘What a morsel for my trencher!’
A catch full worthy of this Byronic wencher!
Soft echoes of a night of pleasure
Reached Kubla’s ears in iambic measure;
And ’mid their sorcery was heard from far
Old girlfriends’ voices prophesying war!
Thence was I bound, when dropt had parting tears,
Of Blowing Rock, where minutes seem like years.
Thence by Eastern chariot to Yale,
Where Study rules, and Fun doth not prevail!
A lobster with a megaphone
In a vision I once saw:
I blame it on the nine steamed Maine clams,
And the forty Michelob drams,
Downed on Mount Acadia.
Could I revive within me
Its gurgling little spell,
Such notoriety ’twould win me,
They would build a padded cell,
Ere I could tell that vision strange!
No sunny dome! No caves of ice!
As in New York, where glass and steel
And riches glint, and where — ’twas real! —
An albatross on high doth wheel!
Take me to infinity,
And close my eyes with dark claret,
But journey’s end is distant yet,
So I‘ll make do with Trinity.