Dessert Theater

The story

This poem definitely needs some explaining. I was spending the day at my buddy Ben's house, and in the evening I went with his family to this thing called dessert theater. It's where you watch people do acting sort of things and during the intermission there's dessert. I was rather hungry when I got there, and I'd been told that I would be getting cheesecake. I found the acting to be very boring for the most part, and so I borrowed a pen from Ben's Poppers and started writing this down on my napkin just to entertain myself. It's the first poem I wrote by myself. The room was dark except for the stage but there were candles at each table and I wrote this down by candlelight. The twinkly stuff that I put in my hair and made necklaces out of later on in the poem was just some funny plastic stringy stuff like what you'd find inside an easter basket. They had little nests of it surrounding the candles on each table. And when I talk about bad spelling, it's because I didn't have a spell checker. It turns out I really did spell everything on the napkin right anyway. Except for rhyme and saccharin. At the part where I say that I'd better quit while I'm ahead, I took a long break from writing and I didn't plan on writing more. But I got so bored watching the acting that I just had to keep writing. I know the very end of the poem doesn't rhyme, but we were leaving right then and I couldn't keep writing so I wanted to end it.

Dessert Theater
By Jonathan Charlton
April 24, 1999

My cheesecake I sure can’t wait for
Woah nelly, this napkin almost tore
How I long for yummy vittles
Indeed, nothing rhymes with vittles
I hope to shovel food right down
Those proper folk might look and frown
I’m watching a guy scarf tater chips
I bet he wishes he brought dip
These people are acting very quickly
It’s making me feel really sickly
I’m writing poetry real well
I’d be rich if this I’d sell
It’s very hard to concentrate
Some actors are talking about ideal dates
Achy Breaky Heart that actor just said
That’s a great song, but it’s not sung by Ted
I don’t really know who it is sung by
I could make someone up, but it would be a lie
It’s getting immensely hard to write
What’s fading rapidly is the light
I thought my program was a menu
I guess what kind of rhymes is kung-fu
The perfect woman is being acted out up there
Of cooking lots of food and stuff she doesn’t really care
The woman’s name is muffin, I thought she was a food
It’s seems she’s only just an actor… woah dude
I feel the need for nourishment
I’d do something if I were Clark Kent
That chip scarfing guy is up once more
I hope he’s funny as he was before
It’s very dark, I can’t see in this lighting
Your lucky I care enough about this poetry writing
Dude, I just finished a whole column of napkin
Don’t you even think to chew that gum that contains saccharin
I don’t think I spelled column right
That doesn’t bring me much delight
I finished my food, it didn’t last
How I’m longing for the past
We don’t get seconds on the cake
That’d take them twice as long to bake
That rhyme wasn’t funny at all
The fact I wrote it makes me appalled
Some of these words are really smelling
On account of awful spelling
I’m running out of clever words
The rhymes I’m thinking have been heard
Empty of poetry is my head
I better quit while I’m… um… ahead
If you could see me, then you’d understand
That my boredom is near at hand
In fact, I’d say it’s already here
The boredom of me is pretty clear
You see, I’ve got twinkly stuff in my hair
And I’ve made plastic necklaces as I sit in my chair
Actually, the truth is that this is mighty fun
Cause of the authors of the poem I am the only one
Never have I written a poem of this kind
Don’t set your head on fire, you might end up blind
Uh, I got to go right now
So this poem must end…. really really quick

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