The word was passed from dude to bro:
We must protect the status quo!
…. so yeah, that was the thought that came to me the other night, while walking the cuttlepooch. This happens all the time; a phrase will pop into what passes for my consciousness, and I have to do something with it. Or not. In this case, I’ve kicked it around a bit, and I get some fairly horrendous stuff:
That quo which is so very status—
Winds of change? No, no! That’s flatus!
…. I’ve tried transposing things, to see if other verses pull this one in some reasonable direction:
The word was passed from bro to dude–
Such truth must not be misconstrued:
…. But seriously, I got nothing. So I’m crowdsourcing. Throwing it to the mercy of the court… of public opinion. To my extraordinary readers and commenters. I am ready to simply toss the first couplet away, and think about other things. Should I? Is it worth saving? Is it crap? What can *you* do with it?
(Longtime readers both know that my writing consists preponderately of rough drafts; I don’t often go back and edit. That’s part of why I try never to claim the mantle of “poet” writing “poetry”; this is verse, or doggerel, or commentary in rhyme. The quandary represented by the current post is something that I deal with on a daily, or a bit less, basis. I regularly throw away stuff like this, or keep it and experiment… but today’s experiment is not me, but you.)
Seriously, take a stab! I have some phenomenal writers who comment here… and I have the rest of you, who may well be phenomenal writers as well–we’ll never know unless you write!
Me? I’m giving up on it. There is only so much one cuttlefish can do. It’s in your hands now!
The word was passed from dude to bro:
We must protect the status quo!
Women. Queers. And trannies, too:
Voicing ‘pinions, this will not do!
…yeah, sorry.
The word was passed from Cuttle to crowd:
To ask for help he’s not too proud.
A morsel of some text occurred,
But denouement has not been heard.
You draw a blank, you think it’s crap,
Though something there’s too good to scrap:
“The word got passed from dude to bro:
We must protect the status quo!”
Quo vadis, man, that’s cunning stuff.
Your two quick lines are quite enough!
They stand alone, subculture splendid;
No need to noodle how to end it.
My humble contribution:
The word was passed from dude to bro:
“We must protect the status quo!
We cannot let the problem grow,
We need to stop the women!”
So with their keyboards well in hand hand,
They spread the message ‘cross the land
To meet in secret at 4chan
And get back at the women!
At last, the chosen hour had come
And in the Slymepit, one by one,
They whined and moaned that they got none
Because of all the women!
“They get pissed off when we say hi,
Or pinch their butts when they walk by
Or say we want between their thighs.
What’s wrong with modern women?”
“We buy them drinks, call them sublime,
They slap us down, like it’s a crime
To treat them as if they were prime.
To Hell with all the women!”
“They used to know it was a trade:
We’d spend our cash and then get laid.
But now we work and don’t get paid.
Screw you, you filthy c… uh, women!”
At last a fiendish plan arose
“We’ll hack their pictures, then disclose
To all the world that they are ho’s.
THAT will teach the women!”
But when they took their manly stand,
Things didn’t quite go as they planned:
The backlash left them quite unmanned;
They never got the women.
So word was passed from dude to bro:
“We must protect the status quo!
We cannot let the problem grow,
We need to stop the women!”
Iambic quadrameter? This is an excellent way to kill the rest of my workday. Apologies and content note for the gendered/sexual slurs – I’m writing in the voice of a credulous misogynist here.
Come one, come all and hear the tale
of how brave gamers pierced the veil
to right great wrongs ‘gainst powerless
consumers of the gaming press!
Toward summer’s end twenty-fourteen
in front of a computer screen
one Eron Gjoni hatched a plan
to benefit his fellow man.
Too long he’d suffered silently
robbed of his masculinity,
his cheating partner running ’round,
on game reporters going down.
To Reddit, 4chan, WordPress, more,
he went to out the faithless whore,
exposing her misdeeds to all,
corruption would end by mid-fall!
And so they rallied, gamers brave.
They tirelessly worked to save
the heretofore pure gaming press
from vile corrupting feminists.
Anita S. to Zoe Quinn,
the call went out: don’t let THEM in!
The word was passed from dude to bro:
We must protect the status quo!
The call was heeded far and wide
resulting in a massive tide
of rape-and-death threats, doxxing too;
their cause was just, their aim was true.
The social justice warriors fell
and rang corruption’s loud death knell.
Hash-Gamergate saved games that day!
They’ll never take our games away!
The first couplet I read and thought it was fine,
But then I read this and thought it divine!
This:
John Horstman @4:
BRAVO!
Thanks Tony!