The Ballad of the Roundtable

Editor's Note: See the important announcement, below.

After writing my first poem, The Soundtrack to My Nightmares, I was shocked at how well it was received. (There's a really good story behind it - ask me if you haven't heard it. But while it was being read in class, I actually started cracking up. This also happened when, near the end of Junior Year, the teacher of the infamous "BC on a Boat" class gave me a math prize. It seems that whenever I actually get honored for something I did well, I start cracking up and generally making a fool of myself. Remind me not to ever win a Nobel Prize - it would be most embarrassing if got up to accept it and then started laughing for a straight fifteen minutes.)
Anyway, the reception to Soundtrack gave me the idea that I was suddenly the Poet-laureate of the Roundtable. And, of course, the Roundtable must have its own ballad - the words to its theme song, if you will.
I haven't made as much progress as I had hoped, but I promised something special for this Roundtable Friday, and I won't be able to deliver (see below, for an explanation, or above, for a link to below). Thus, as a consolation prize, I present below selected fragments from what will become The Ballad of the Roundtable.

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Since they were the fiends
Of the Roundtable,
One might guess at what they
Did whene'er able.

But that may overstate their
Drugs and understate
Their other acts: Classiness
Was their law and fate.

Behold! They justly roamed
The vast, ancient school,
And upon their travels spread
classiness and cool.


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Remember, that's only a preview and prototype. I'm too tired even to have proofread it - but it's something.

Keep it classy.

The Soundtrack to My Nightmares

The Soundtrack to My Nightmares was envisioned by the alleged "Shatzmaster 3000" after a certain English class. As no one actually bothered I writing it, I decided, hey, why not?

I spent about 30 minutes working on it while in the "Z-Zone," as that classroom was called. This thing is supposed to be a joke. Why can't you realize it is a joke? Why do you insist upon telling me that this is good!? This is not good! This is a bad poem! Not a good poem! Why did someone submit this to Kally-Oppy?! What is wrong with you? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with the world?

Without further ado, The Soundtrack to My Nightmares.

Far beyond the shadowed sea
of sleep, the nightmares torment me.
A faint yet haunting melody
echoes in my mind.

And in the Hall of Thousand Doors
(by locks unburdened since the wars)
I wander as the music roars
the soundtrack to my nightmares.

Arnold Schoenberg's corpse yet walks;
about 'Number Nine' a Beetle talks;
even a velociraptor balks
before the awful tune.   

I try to flee; I turn a knob,
(above, the vultures just wait and bob)
but my hands cannot do the job:
the door refuses to open.

Other portals respond the same,
I cannot but must play this grim game.
The only soul here bears my name
but it is fading.

But for the song there is no sound.
My life leaves me with a single bound.
But the music still plays, all around,
the soundtrack to my nightmares.