THE SONNET CANTEEN
Good evening, and thank you for visiting the Sonnet Canteen,
where Fine Food & Verse is served from Uh-Oh Hundred Hours
to Oh-No Hundred Hours every day of the year.
We know you have no shortage of choices for wartime entertainment,
and appreciate your selecting the Sonnet Canteen.
Our menu tonight features a variety of carefully paired entrees and poems:
COURSE CHARLES I.
Oysters Kilpatrick (not that wee expect them to until pudding, and then
only if he doesn’t pipe down). Slightly sauced in War Chest Ire, sprinkled
with smoked bacon pearls.
The Teeth of Peace, to keep their even bite,
require every now and then a flossing.
The young protest; they don’t yet know mossing,
but older folks see that the Straight and White
want, like any self-respecting gate,
renewal through benign scraping
(a brush with just paint just won’t stave off gaping).
So teach your kids before it gets too late!
While at first it may seem a bit unfair,
the jerky motion counterintuitional,
truth is, it’s a dandy constitutional
and sure beats meeting the Dentist in Her chair.
And if a bead of blood is sometimes drawn,
Our winning smile wants that selfless pawn.
COURSE RAMESES II.
Cream of Sparrowhawk Soup. A no-nonsense dish that perfectly
complements the following straight-talkin’ press release.
With utmost pleasure and joy in our state
we delight to inform you of our new condition,
the which for viewers tuned in to listen
is fit to shake the will to elate.
Nowhere in annals of memory present
is that can compare with the cause of our mood:
morsels for valiant hearts yearning for food
to supply Best Beating and Pride Unhesitant.
News of utmost import we hereby impart,
clues to the puzzle of our species’ every day:
The fog that shrouds Being will very soon pay
dues of surrender to a pierce-bright start.
Stay Tuned & Rejoice in the news that we are
as of this moment entered into glorious war.
COURSE RICHARD III.
Stone Crab Vol-au-vents. Red pastry casings stuffed with succulent
crustaceans to remind us of how our enemies will soon be scuttling
across silent sands, unless they are already. Why do we do what we do?
As acne depends on the skin to break out from
and sweet things spring from inedible dung;
as sure as sure’s soil is where we reap doubt from,
Peace is the hook on which our shingle’s hung.
Peace is the ace in the hole dug each night
by the groundtroop for hiding her soul from assail;
and during the darkness it’s Peace that shines bright
from the snapshot she carried that tells us her tale.
Indivisible lovers till met remain strange,
dirt comes to scour to see its way clean,
opposites meet in a flash of exchange,
black will greet white with never gray seen.
Fearless we course through the veins of confusion
to our problem’s source, where beats the solution.
COURSE DAVID IV.
Fillet Bambi and Grilled Kings of Prawn. Your senses will be sure to
surrender to this surf-and-turf attack, thanks to special forces of red jus,
mange-tout, and Sweet Bernaise.
War brings out the best in human nature.
We will see how, when the fog of jumpstart
yields its grim gusts to memory, the braveheart
youth who serve our prescient legislature
shine; how the policy and platform and principles
and strategy we’ve stuck to yield their flower,
bloom to deck a global bridal bower—
Boundless Good will wed Invincibles
and the happy cause leave none uninvited!
A legion of envious efforts will scurry to emulate
our best example, even as we consummate
the long-due union of Might and Righted.
Kindness will unfold and take its throne,
Its scepter tap all heartbeats into one.
COURSE HENRY V.
Blood Oranges, marinated in Kirsch, served with Cashews and
Cream, and ringed with fresh bellicose mushrooms.
Must we fight? Fight we must! For
if we don’t we likely won’t not perish—
not to mention all the things we cherish.
Would you watch your treasure rust? Or,
seeing it in need of speedy treatment, grab
a can of stuff to muff its oxidizing?
No trick to pick the latter for best mising.
No time to send out samples to the lab!
Second-guessing has a way of undressing
Purpose just when the Musts have arrived,
and making them wait too late. Having contrived
fitter attire requiring careful pressing,
Purpose descends to greet her guests and finds
them dull. Time of nettles makes quick behinds.
COURSE POPE ALEXANDER VI
A Selection of Cheeses.
The enemy is not cooperating.
Why this should be,
we are at this time investigating
to the best of our ability,
but the enemy is not cooperating,
which impedes our investigation
and calls for stern berating
of their noncooperation.
Their stubborn hating
is costing a leg and an arm,
and until they start cooperating
and show a little charm,
we must keep communicating:
the enemy is not cooperating.
Thank you for visiting the Sonnet Canteen.
We hope you enjoyed your stay with us this evening.
If you did, please tell your fellow combatants about us -
and your enemies too, if you're on speaking terms :)
Till next time, have a scrumptious war!
- The Management