Chapter 55: More… Fun… Stuff…?

I’m in a tearoom in Stratford-upon-Avon and am suddenly struck with a desire to write poetry. And here goes:

Sierra with Cream, by Hari Rai Khalsa

Sierra is eating cream.
She has no knife
But those are pointed.
I’m not sure
If my poetry is wroky,
But at the very least
I have grass in my
Paper
And Sierra’s done.
Oh crap.
For a second that
Actually sounded
Poetic.

That was my first masterpiece, which I’m 90% sure isn’t actually supposed to have the word “wroky” in it, but as long as I’m going by my own handwriting, that’s how the line goes. Ok, here’s another one:

Tearoom

Hi Shakespeare.
You like tea too?
Yeah well
Your butter doesn’t
Come in wrappers.
We’re gonna go
Look at you
Being born now.
This poem should
Really be called
Hi Shakespeare.
Oops.
That’s what you get
When you pick a title
Before the fact.

And my third and final contribution to literature:

An Epic Poem

I am not so good
At the underlines.
Gross!
Cheese.
Make her face turn blue!
My baguette
Will save you all.
Chomp.

That last one was getting kind of avant garde, I think. It also has some plagiarism in it. Oh well.

It’s really late and I should definitely be going to sleep but no, not yet, I have to write or I’ll just never get around to it until it’s all dried up and then what’s the point?

Ok, so when I left you we were still sitting innocently in a train station, naively believing that securing tickets to Macbeth was the greatest of our worries (you can tell that I’m about to tell you another disaster story, can’t you). It turns out that upon arriving in Stratford we ended up having to walk two miles with our fifty pound luggage and our backpacks to get to an overpriced hostel. We couldn’t find the bust stop, what can I say. And all the while we were trying to hurry so we could get tickets to Macbeth before it sold out (this is Stratford after all). And my phone was dead. And I was in boots. And it was hot. Oh it was miserable.

Nonetheless, whining aside, we made it. And Macbeth worked out fine and was a very good show. Graphic. *Shudder*

We decided to spend an extra night in Stratford, because it was pretty sweet. So today we saw Shakespeare’s birthplace (meh), Anne Hathaway’s cottage (flowers!), and Shakespeare’s deathplace (meh), rounding off the whole thing, no sorry, scratch that, starting off the whole thing with tea and piping hot scones, whatever piping means. And a good bout of poetry writing, which of course you have already been subjected to.

In the evening we went to go see Chekhov’s the Seagull starring… Ian McKellan!! Oh my god, he was so good. The were ALL so good. Amazing cast. Excellent show. Incredible Russian play. Probably one of the best theater performances I’ve ever seen. I loved it.

Ok enough of that. It is now serious sleepy time.

Oh, except that I must mention that at Anne Hathaways’s cottage there were baby ducks. Do you realize how cute a baby duck is? No, do you REALLY realize how cute a baby duck is? Check it out sometime.

Also, the historical method of chimney cleaning back in the day had me laughing for about ten minutes. The would take a chicken, tie it onto a rope, toss it into the chimney (basketball style?) and lower it down from the outside. It would flap about in a mad panic (I probably would, too) and thus the chimney would become clean. Sometimes the chicken would survive, in which case it would return to the coop looking slightly sootier than before. And sometimes the chicken would die, in which case chicken soup was on the menu that night. Tragic as this may sound in terms of animal rights, I really found this hilarious.