Bob wrote:
While it's easy to write mediocre poetry, writing bad stuff is much harder. Finding just the right pretentious term, forcing rhymes, inappropriate subject matter, incongruity, and insipid meter are difficult to bundle up into one work.
This is for you Bob, and my friend Dresden. Please, everyone, read it out loud in a cheesy Italian accent.
I once heard a fable
from a drunk at a table
a drunk named Giotto
in an Inn called La Grotto.
He had had too much grappe
So the tale is not proppa
For a Doge or Il Papa
Or anyone dappa.
In Cappanori
A castratti Signori
He was most demurra.
in his brocade gamurra
Singing his falsetto
in a silk farsaletto.
By Signoras adored
They hung on to each chord.
Jocopo's beginning
Started with much sinning
When a great King
did a miserly thing.
His Mama, Gionna
was home alla lone
and the Germani Soldati
Did something naughty.
They came into Roma,
at the mouth they did foama
They had notta been paid
So they staged this raid.
1Such was the setting
Of angry armed vetting
that there was much blood letting
and unfortunate begetting.
In her deep shame
she changed her name
and pretended that she
was a widowed lady.
Still she loved her blond boy,
And he brought her much joy,
with a face cherubino,
and a voice multi-fino!
He grew big, near rotundo
But no basso profundo
Would earn him his keep
(since his tastes were not cheap.)
Away to Salerno,
With a note most materno
He was sent with a mission
Castration to commission.
2 His mama she loved him
but she was no fool
A man can't get buy
with only one tool.
Bella linguatori
This handsome signori
Sang for the Duke of Ferrara
In a velvet zimarra.
As he got older
his charms became bolder
With the wives of doges,
and divas and drudges.
His voice like Orpheus
Rang out from the dais.
And his passion at night
gave them equal delight.
Nor did their lords
Reach for their swords
(Had they known he could mate
They might have been irate.)
3In fair Florenza
and affair intenza
was had with Hortenza
Daughter of Szforenza.
In dramatic expression
he sang out confession,
inspiring Camerattas
In inventing the Operas.
4The tale has no moral
Or theme allegoral
Unless it might be
Pomodore don't fall far from the tree.
___________________
1 -- 5 May 1527 – always pay your German mercenaries, especially if they know where you live.
2 -- Salerno was known as the place for a successful castration. Long a confluence of Arabic, classic and European medicine, castrations in Salerno were done without the total removal of testicles, but were more like todays vasectomy. While in general one could not expect a surgery of any success in the 1500s, you hedged your bets by going to Salerno.
3 -- Ladies found it convenient to take Castrati lovers. Their sexual prowess was not curbed, only their reproductive prowess. Also, they tended to take better care of themselves, dress well and stink less.
4 -- The Camerata: a group of Florentine noblemen who in the late 1500s created the stil rappresentativo, which became the earliest form of opera.
