Beyond the Pale

After the palomino palled, we pressed the palms of our hands and attacked the palimpsest head-on. The first round was ineffectual and we drew our palfreys aside for a palaver.

My pedipalps quivered in anticipation—privately I hoped but I prevaricated publicly: What is this palsied paludal pseudo-preparation? they inquired, pressing themselves closely around me.

Purely a pretense, I stammered, not a proper psalter. The Pleiades were pale in the sky, preliminary to their precrepuscular plummet.

The Bull, the Man, and the Dog were following close behind, a situation which had always bothered me, but there was no time to think.

Perhaps, I cried, perhaps it is the palatial for which we must perpend, irrespective of the political palette.

Perhaps, they answered, it is the carelessly palliative which we must probe. Anything else would be unpalatable.

So back we pressed to the promontory, pari passu, pushing our palfreys to the limit, scattering the pullets as we picked our way, past the perpetrators.

There must be better ways, they panted. Perhaps, I procrastinated.

Perhaps, perhaps.