by Danny "Don Juan" Henrey
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, for too much claret have I drunk,
And several bottles of vintage port
With finest viands stomach-wards have sunk:
But ’tis a happy peptic pain, with which
I celebrate our tryst nocturnal,
That revelry and mirth may hold the sway:
Forego this night to scratch the Yuppie itch,
The nagging blight of things diurnal —
This eve devote to the Byronic way!
The soul Byronic is a varied thing,
As toothsome Steve, that creature of the night,
Who to ivory necks is wont to cling,
His fetid fancy soaring as a kite,
Doth demonstrate: purple-stained his mouth
With AB negative and Nuits-St.-Georges.
Of tales of derring-do he ceaseless rants:
Quoth he, ‘’Pon my travels in the south,
I chanced upon a deep, romantic gorge —
It scared me so, I damn near wet my pants!’
None more heroic than brave Mad Jack:
A lover, poet, dreamer, rower, gent,
Croquet enthusiast and sometime hack,
Who’s still searching for a maid heaven-sent;
Thus of Fiona did he come to ask
How best the modern girl’s fancy to please,
And what teacherly insights she could proffer;
Quoth she, ‘Seduction is a subtle task:
You must ladies tickle, but not make sneeze —
I’ll lend you a schoolgirl — now there’s a fair offer!’
Chris too’s a lover of dubious fame,
Though nought human does he seek for a mate;
Over Port Meadow does he nightly range,
His amorous ovine urges to sate:
One moonless winter’s night he sallied hence,
Green-wellied, barbour-clad and full of lust —
Upon his soul perversity had wrote;
Alas so dark the night, the dark so dense,
That Chris his awful fate could not have sussed,
To end up in flagrante with a goat.
Ah, but to live the life Byronic!
To embrace sweet abandon in ecstatic joy,
That through the limbs and loins it courses, ’tis ironic
That such a flaring torch must burn dim so soon;
But it doesn’t matter, for to experience more ’twould cloy,
And so we fest, jest and sigh by the light of the full-crested moon:
So, Byronists dear, this moral recall in times of worry —
Being Byronic means never having to say you’re sorry...