Each line had to have four words beginning with the same consonant, with a hint of pause in the middle. Four vowels would do the trick as well,  as long as they weren’t  used very often. Beowulf was the tale of noble warrior, who fought monster like Grendel, and Seamas Heaney did a modern version of it using the same principles.  

Being urged by former mayor Ed Koch and others to welcome the Republican National Convention to town, we thought, what could be more appropriate than a heroic saga based on Bush’s warrior-like virtues. So here it is, as far it goes, (which is probably farther than his warrior like qualities). Best read aloud with a horn of mead in one hand and a battle ax in the other, for banging on the bench.

 

 

Bushowulf – the Saga

 

Behold! How Bushowulf, the bold, was bent

On wielding weapons worthy of a warrior’s son.

Hearing his kinfolk were harried by Ho in far Hue ,

Bushowulf raced rapidly to join the ranks of rangers

Across the sky, and showed his skill and scarelessness

In onerous ordeals, obnoxious to overhear.

 

Bushowulf did his darndest in durance dire.

Ere wearing his welkin warrior warhelm

The soothsayers asked riddles sorely singeing his cerebrum.

Heartlessly, they harassed our hero with hard queries

Like “Can you fly, or fight, or figure a flight path?”

 

Young Bushowulf cut the crap and carved to the quick,

And yelled, “Yammer not! Yea!  I’m a Yalie,

Who’s scryed  the secrets of the Skull and Skeletons.

And followed my forebears into football, and firkins.

A Senator was my Grand sire, his son a soulmate of Solons, 

Pass me post haste or their power will punish you!

 

The Gatekeepers to the Guard gasped, said “Go-ahead.

WASPS with wealth are worth more than a warranted commission

You can’t fly, nor fight, nor figure out a fig,

But the Lone Star State loves to have loyal Liegemen

Protecting it from Pancho Villa, and possible raids from Panama .

 

Come fly the Delta Dagger with us because your dad desires it,

Why fight in Hai Phong far away when you can feast fittingly

At home in Houston , where Ho and his harpies will

Never come near, and no morning smell of noxious napalm

Will tickle your tonsils nor tarnish your loafer tassels.”

 

So sealing the sign to “no” over seas service

Young Googen gained a commission in the Air Guard over   Galveston .

Honor bound to honestly risk no harm to himself.

For six long years of service, snorting, and sometimes soaring.

Daring Bushowulf the dashing, who had dates with Destiny

(and Tiffany, and Tricia and lots of tricksy teens)

Heroically hoarded his hide for higher things.

Kept himself carefully for the coming combat

With Gore the ghoul, big on government and tax-geld.

 

So hearts grew harder, and the hosts hewed each other

Millions of men wounded mortally, others mauled,

Brave men battled, the far ocean beyond, bled and bitterly died.

Yet boredom, and booze the young Bushowulf bested.

In his fourth year he fled to far Alabama , flirting always,

Learning how to smite and smear, and slime and slander

In coming campaigns for canny kingship.

 

And Lo! Uncle Sam was angered at our hero’s absence

Deemed it dereliction of his oath-bound duty, desertion. even

But the ghosts of his Grand Old Party gathered to guarantee

That the scribes and the sagas sang only of Bushowulf’s service,

And rewrote the Runes in the Realm of the Texans, rinsing all blot.

   

Behold, as Bushowulf waxed, he foreBore the booze.

The Valkyries who vault only for the valiant to take to Valhalla

The bosomy bints of the battlefield left Bushowulf behind.

In the absence of Odin, and in abstinence of alcohol

Little Googen began to grapple with God.

A hotline to heaven  is heaps of help to

A Texan witan would-be who wants to win.

The fragment of the parchment finishes here. We will look in the barrow of the Skull & Bones clan to see if more can be found..