I'm Icarus, I had some fun,
I built some wings, flew to the sun.
My wings came unstuck,
I fell like a schmuck...
A damn stupid thing to have done.

Well, that's what the fable tells you,
Of course the whole tale's far from true.
It's time to come clean,
'Bout the whole sordid scene,
That ended in smashed head and grue.

Editor's note for you poor
Illiterate fools: grue means gore,
Like the girl said to Newsom
Stark naked: "It's gruesome!"
He spied her, the thing gruesome more.

That joke, now so old that it creaks.
Was new in the time of the Greeks,
Where all such tales start.  A
Small garden in Sparta,
Where Icarus goes for his leeks...

(Well, they didn't have indoor plumbing.)

From whence can our hero espy,
A neighbouring window on high,
Wherein Lysistracta,
A virga intacta,
Is combing the hair next her thigh.

Now, as you may learn from some tome,
That's still found in many a home,
This bloke, Paul of Tarsus,
Kicks infidel arses,
In Ephesus, Antwerp and Rome.

He goes places others have skirted,
To Sparta, where most are perverted.
The talk of this stranger,
Of babes in a manger,
So soon has our Lyzzie converted.

And though you may think it absurd,
She starts in a-spreading his word,
Of thousands that's fed,
And of raising the dead,
And angels that fly like a bird.

Now, readers with culture and breeding,
Will certainly see where I'm leading,
And spot the denoue-
men, the old grace de coup,
That leaves our Ick battered and bleeding.

But for those lacking qualities rare,
I'll fill in the gaps.  To the square
In centre of town,
Our hero trots down,
And plucks all the pigeons that's there.

With buckets of beeswax and strings,
Bamboo and some helical springs,
He labours away
For most of the day,
To make him a fine pair of wings.

There's no way the fool's going to fly,
He knows that as do you or I,
But that ain't his aim,
He fancies that dame,
That sleeps in the room up on high.

For in dead of night-time he'll creep,
A secret appointment he'll keep,
With wings fitted tight,
He'll climb up the flight
Of stairs to the place Lyzzie sleeps.

He knocks on her door.  To her cry:
"Who's there?" Icky makes this reply:
"The Lord did appoint me,
To come and anoint thee,
Then back to the heavens I'll fly."

She lets him in, throws off all caution,
And Icarus gives her a portion,
They're at it all night,
'Til the dawn's early light,
And finally sleep in exhaustion.

She wakes, with the sun way up high,
And utters a wail of a cry:
"An angel you ain't!
I thought you a saint!
You're Icky, that weird ugly guy!"

She's hollering: "Help! Murder! Rape!"
He struggles to rise, mouth agape.
There's sound from the stair,
So totally bare,
The window's the only escape.

He falls like a lead-plated rock,
No wings now to cushion the shock,
But those now she's sent,
To trail his descent,
And they land on his back, as to mock.

And thus, so the town is not shocked,
That "flight to the sun" tale's concoct-
ed, saving her honour,
While he who did con her,
Is carried off stiff in a boxt.

A moral you're wanting then Chuck?
I think that this time you're in luck:
To fall for a tart
Breaks your head not your heart;
And feathers should stay on a duck.

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Last updated: Sat, 20 Oct 2001.