A Pirate Visits at Midnight

aka Each New Day: clarified {see previous entry "Each New Day" for fun and games}

Prologue

I look back now at
dark vacuum passed
warped time poor spent as
iconoclast.

"Choices, me laddy boy,
choices," he said.
Then he turned and he spit
and he scratched at his head.
"It's all about choices, now,
each bloody morn.
Do ye face them wiv grace, boy?
Do ye rend them with scorn?'

"Choose wisely, me laddy,
choose wisely," he said.
"cause it's tumble or travel
when ye first roll from bed."

"And nowest ye know whot means
them when they say,
'Aye, be making the best now
of each dawning day. '"

Epilogue

A little Pirate Code:

Damnable near thee Inn
Me Bandanna nether lie
Nene hen diner tambala
He be enter Mandala Inn

Linen be Eden Amaranth
Maharani been lend net
Anathema been rend nil
Nee hint darn amenable

Each New Day

Each New Day: a pirate drops by around midnight for a chat • What he is doing here, I do not know. No, not every day, once. A pirate doesn't drop by every DAY around midnight! - ONCE! Subtitle, get it? Subtitle too Subtle? {har har} Geezum!

{Insert "???" here. That thing, you know, that think that precedes the stuff that is. No, not an introduction, nor words of critical acclaim. the PROLOGUE! Yeah, that's it. Here it is. the PROlogue}

(But first, the author wishes to thank a few folks}

Acknowledgements

I'd like to thank Mrs. Bricknell, my first grade teacher (we used to call her Mrs. Brickwall, but she had the best paste in the school). A special family thanks to M & M & Emily.

Ooh, and let us not forget that one special lady out there, and you know who you are. Yes you do, oh, yes you do, You do. I'll just type out the alphabet until I get to the letter . . . well, no, that's not gonna work. Hmmmmm. Well, honey, dear, I was jes foolin'. You knows it was you I was meanin' the whole time! Smoochie smoochie smoochie!
Prologue

I look back now at
dark vacuum passed
warped time poor spent as
iconoclast.

{um, end prologue. There's no chapters, so I just thought I'd point out that the prologue was over so you'd not that what follows is now the content to which the title refers.}

{Sorry for the intrusion. Just wanted to clarify the flow. Guess I kinda broke it up instead. Well, now you know how it goes, so you can go back to the top and read it and ignore all this stuff here inside the brackets and all and it'll be just the way the author intended it to be.

Just wanted to remind you again, the prologue is over, what follows is the main text, the logue so to speak. There will be no apilogue.

Although, come to think of it, the final stanza makes a pretty fair epilogue. I'm not so sure about having the protagonist carry the epilogue, though. Sort of steals my thunder.

Well, enough from me. Here we go. Or you go, anyway, if you made it this far and elect to madly go the rest of the way.}

"Choices, me laddy boy,
choices," he said.
Then he turned and he spit
and he scratched at his head.
"It's all about choices, now,
each bloody morn.
Do ye face them wiv grace, boy?
Do ye rend them with scorn?'

"Choose wisely, me laddy,
choose wisely," he said.
"cause it's tumble or travel
when ye first roll from bed."

"And nowest ye know whot means
them when they say,
'Aye, be making the best now
of each dawning day. '"

Epilogue

{OK. So I lied. Here it is. The epilogue. But of this was a limnological poem, the epilogue would be at the top and you would find a hypologue here at the bottom. Now there's something to ponder.}

Darn. And to think there was actually some serious insight in this thing before I started adding all this trash around it. MmmmPerhaps. HmmmmMaybe there's some significance to that, hmmmmm?

{scritch scratch scritch at the chin}


"Psssssst. Hey. You. Yeah, you. Over here. Come on, come on. I haven't got all day. But I've got me a tale of a special lady. Her identity has been anagrammatized in this here pirate code I am about to recite. Arrgh, they be real words I'll be recountin' to ye, lassies, and don't ye be makin' no fuss on 'em, neither. They may be be as smelly and foreign as ambergris, but they be right good as gold to a pirate as me an' don't ya go forgettin' it.

DAMNABLE NEAR THEE INN
ME BANDANNA NETHER LIE
NENE HEN DINER TAMBALA
HE BE ENTER MANDALA INN

LINEN BE EDEN AMARANTH
MAHARANI BEEN LEND NET
ANATHEMA BEEN REND NIL
NEE HINT DARN AMENABLE

{Pirate code courtesy of me, with a little help from the Internet Anagram Server. Heh, dream on! It doesn't work in reverse!}

Snowy morn

A Downy Woodpecker taps gently
on the stub of a maple branch
Frosted hillsides in the background.
Red squirrel sneaks out of a brush pile
pauses to look around then hops across the snowy ground.
Nuthatch flits overhead
calling and twitching as it springs tree to tree.

Life proceeds, new year or not,
winter be damned,
seen or unwatched.