JESTER CLOSER WALK WITH THEE

This year the Razzie Awards declared Battlefield Earth the worst movie of the decade. The screenwriter, J.D. Shapiro, wrote a Catskills stand-up style “apology” for the New York Post; you can read it here.

Here’s a poem I wrote a couple of years ago:

Have more than you show
Speak less than you know
Lend less than you owe
Learn more than you know
Bet less than you throw
Lay off the booze and whores
Keep yourself indoors
And you shall have more
Then two tens to a score

Well, OK, I didn’t write it, exactly. The Fool speaks it in King Lear. I just, you know, jazzed up the language a little. April Fool.

It’s still good advice, though, wouldn’t you say?

But here’s a sonnet I really did write a couple of years ago, appropriate to the day…

A PRAYER FOR MAUNDY THURSDAY

Every supper is a final meal,
A formal celebration of betrayal,
A leave-taking before a dirty deal,
A maintenence of meat for wood and nail.
The body breaks itself upon the world,
Then builds itself again with wads of bread;
The purple treasure down the throat is hurled,
And mulls the spirit waiting to be shed.
Every Thursday dinner, we devour
Each other’s flesh, in weakling company;
We hold our peace throughout that hungry hour;
To show our teeth, we smile cordially.
Grant supper, now and then, may trace a line
To blood and love, from self-preserving wine.

Monster-of-the-Week: What to pick? Today is April Fool’s Day, on the other hand the remake of the monster-studded epic Clash of the Titans opens tomorrow, on the other hand this is Easter weekend. I think we’ll use the latter occasion as our theme, & give the nod to a bunny monster. There are still plenty of choices—there are monster rabbits in Donnie Darko, Sexy Beast & the rib-tickling late-night fave Night of the Lepus.

But of all the beastly bunnies, possibly the greatest is the Rabbit of Caerbannog from one of the greatest movies ever made, Monty Python and the Holy Grail…

…whose sweet & innocent appearance hides its ability to leap through the air & remove the head of an Arthurian Knight in nothing flat, & who can even send a frontal onslaught by the Knights of the Round Table into retreat with cries of “Run away! Run away!”

Happy April Fool’s Day, & Happy Easter, everybody….