Prose Poem: Norwegian Walnuts.

 

We sailed through the Suez Canal during a sultry 

afternoon in March.

I was worried about our cargo:

Norwegian walnuts are subject

to all sorts of hot weather wilting

issues.

But many members of my crew

had never seen sand in their entire

lives:

Lascars and Antimacassars,

Laplanders and Foozlemen. 

After our rough passage around the

Grimstead Archipelago, 

I figured they deserved a

reward for their hard work

and sacrifice.

Abbiby, our pilot, seemed nervous.

 "These waters can be Quixotic" he told

me, when I mentioned his twitching

and feral glances. 

"The Canal has many moods"

he continued, chewing on a 

Baby Wampas Bar. 

"So do I" I told him grimly.

"So don't hand me any tall tales

and just get us past the Dry Heaves, pronto!"

My little outburst seemed to settle his hash,

but two days later, as we sighted Marmalade Kettle,

Abbiby abruptly abandoned the wheel to jump overboard.

He landed on a sandbank and scuttled away.

We grounded on that same sandbank,

at which point I lost control of my crew --

they threw themselves onto the sand in an

ecstasy of unbridled joy, scooping up the grains

to pour over their heads and down their shirt

fronts, and they even began swallowing the sand.

"Tastes yust like sugar!" yelled Finn Mark, 

my first mate. 

I knew it wouldn't be long

before the sand flies got 'em,

so I lured them back onboard 

with rollmops and lemon schnauzer. 

Then opened all the stopcocks. 

The ship settled into the sandbank,

never to move again.

And I planted all the Norwegian walnuts

along the bank of the Canal . . . 

Eventually we built a country club

and started a credit union. 

Then the crew started clamoring

to make me King of Sandbank Island.

But I told them such a thing

would surely lead to vassalage,

and their daughters would become

confectionaries.

But they insisted, 

so now I'm the King.

King of an upstart gang of 

arrogant and immature men.

They're such proud boys . . . 

**********************************

An English Professor at BYU responded to the above with his own poem, based on the Beatle's 'Norwegian Wood.' --

I once had a nut,

Or should I say, I was a nut?

She showed me her nut:

Isn’t it good, Norwegian nut?

 

She called me a nut

And she told me to sit on a nut.

So I picked up a nut

And noticed it wasn’t a walnut.

 

I sat on a rug, eating my nut,

Drinking her nut.

We talked like a nut

And then she said, You are a nut.

 

She told me she worked like a nut

And I laughed like a nut.

I told her her nut

Took a bath and then crawled like a nut.

 

And when my poor nut

Woke, I was the nut!

This bird was nut.

So I fired the nut--

Isn’t it good, Norwegian nut?