P3D Pandoras vs Panglosses (a P3D tag-team bout)

[Bruce Springsteen <bsspringsteen@xxxxxxxxx>]

(Sorry to be late to meet the challenge, I was out playing stickball with
the other boys.  Mommy said to get out and get some fresh air instead of
ruining my eyes and daydreaming in front of a computer all day.)

Wow, who says email can't be literature?!  Oliver (in a dandy posting) and
others see choice where I (and some others) see loss of choice; he sees
the best of all possible worlds where I see swarming demons unleashed on
the innocent people.

So, it's poetry we're battling with now, eh?  We'll I'm not down for the
count yet.  First a little feint:

"Ode to the Dean of Arts and Letters"

There once was a poet named Oliver
Who posted a sonnet most excellent.
In spirit of Kovacs
It was a grand effort
Especially since nothing rhymes with orange. 


Then a left hook:

There once was an artist named Bruce
Whose discipline tended to "loose".
Though critics would moan,
He'd demand to be shown:
"My art isn't bad - it's abstruse!"


A right cross:

"Gresham's Limerick"

A man seeking fruit in the fall
Built a ladder both sturdy and tall,
But the mob on the ground
That was scrounging around
Soon knocked him down, ladder and all.


And a flurry of iambic pentameter:

The siren's song is sweet to all men's hearing.
She calls to them across the troubled main.
>From misty shores she offers words endearing
And whispers dreams of ease to calm the brain.

I tremble at the stories long enduring
Of those who've heard the siren's call before
And sailors who succumb to tunes alluring,
Abandoning the charts and routes of yore.

In spite of sense, the sultry voice that draws them
And promises a refuge from the wave,
Has veiled in clouds the rigid rocks and shallows
Where, foundering, they lose what they would save.

And then the waters rise, submerging choice,
'Til icy numbness stills the hand and voice.
***

There, that should raise my average a little in the stats! 

Bruce (I coulda been somebody.  I coulda been George Themelis, instead of
a bum, which is what I am.) Springsteen  

 
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