Fractured Verse
{A Bumbershoot Special Feature}

W.H. Auden
(who comes pre-fractured)

Musee des Beaux Arts As fractured by Anon

How crafty and arty those Dutch!
They knew so incredibly much.
Do you die or despair?
Well people don’t care.
They’re too busy tilling and such.

 

The Fall of Rome A parody by Sally Cook

Volcanoes rage and fires burn
Disaster works to dim us all
And make us slump when we are tall;
Great road blocks rise up from the fern.

A fruit is now a tool at work;
Blackberries send our thoughts abroad
And every fool and each fat fraud
Lurks there to catch us; we just smirk

And all the messages we send
Proclaim our bodies are ourselves
Still, we get tipsy, overeat
Then find it difficult to bend.

It’s all the same, from sea to sea,
Wires don’t care what they bring
And we have all forgot to sing;
I hate you and you hate me.