Friday, February 17, 2017

I'm Ready for Slam Poetry Night!! (Wait, Do They Still Do Those?)


The Bypass Thief

A Morality Tale in Fifteen Unnecessary Cantos


THIEF! THIEF! shrieked our boss Karen by email,
The copier bypass key was filched! Jail
Was much too good for such a reprobate,
This was worse than those who sly masturbate!

Karen called me in the office. "It's time,"
Said she, "For someone to pay for this crime!"
Her voice was hobbled hoarse; she limped like Ahab
And dark demanded I the culprit nab.

"It's a sign--a key!--of the sad zeitgeist
That someone would pull such a heinous heist
And make off by depravity sublime--
A stunt on par with a certain pipeline!

"Greg, go forth to the second floor and scope
For scofflaws who copy for free, no joke!"
Like Dupin she opined the thief the scene
To return and reap the profits obscene.

As I left she yelled, "Incident report
Fill out, too!" "Yes," I muttered my retort
Wittily. With a face like a tough guy,
I climbed stairs and roved my reluctant eye.

In one corner sat the man usual
With his laptop and grunting perusal--
Who once was suspected of kiddie porn
But had for Candy Crush a thing forlorn.

There was the old lady with the boxes
Who stooped like she had a broken coccyx...
Asleep or dead? Until a snore mighty
Stole the key to my equanimity.

At computer Number Four sat a bore
Not wearing his shoes that stunk on the floor.
He said his "diabetes" it was due
Why he had to flaunt library rules.

Hm. Flaunt, eh? I gave him a look narrow.
Was this mustached man, this deranged pharaoh,
Our thief? But I paused. How to get it done?
"No one expects the Key Inquisition!!..."

I slunk back downstairs, feckless and keyless.
Karen was mad, she wanted the Loch Ness!
But she also said Our Chief Dorito
Had whet her appetite to slay a foe.

"Catch the thief! Catch the thief!" was so bruited
While Jonah and Lexie were recruited--
"Go and stand sentry for this criminal!
Look sharp, you! Run up there, get on the ball!"

Lexie [aside] said, "The boss never tires--
I'm strung high, but she's on a string higher!"
While Jonah deconstructed the mise-en-
Scene and equated the key to Lacan.

Meanwhile all the staff was in concern deep,
Who'd stolen the key like a stupid creep?
On that line of thought Todd piped in with his
Theory about more key crimes--namely, jizz?

Days went by. Karen with lashings of tongue
Yelled at the staff--and as she her arm swung
Out jumped a small object from her jacket--
A silver key. It'd been in her pocket!

In the wise worldly words of Walt Kelly:
We have met the thief of the bypass key--
And the bypass key thief is...
Karen.

2 comments:

  1. Athenaeum mystery regaled in quatrain
    Initial thought, "Ready for pain"
    When found is the unlocker of copy
    Delightful as the smoking of poppy

    ReplyDelete