In Xanadu did Jutta Khan
A pastry pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alf, the sacred baker, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to the halfbakery.

So half five miles of fertile ground
With categories girdled round :
And there were annotations bright,
Where blossomed much half-baked theory ;
And here was Sealy, ancient as the hills,
Shouting “Baked!” aloft a cynic’s eyrie

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down that doughy icon athwart a flaky cover!
A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a baker’s moon was haunted
By a woman wailing for her demon-lover!
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this bread in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty brainstorm momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these prancing dolts and flakes
It flung up momently the sacred cakes.
Five miles meandering with a mazy annotation
Through wit and pun the sacred baker ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ration
And 'mid this tumult jutta heard from far
Newbie voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the HB dome
Floated o’er the baker’s cousin
Where was contrived the adopted home
Of many a bold half-baker’s dozen

It was a miracle of rare device:
A sunny pastry-dome with caves of vice!
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was a blissmissinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of the halfbakery
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and HB song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! Those caves of vice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
Their flashing wit and pedantic air!
Weave a circle round them thrice,
And close your eyes with holy bread,
For they on half baked dough hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.
-- goff, Jan 30 2002

For comparison http://eserver.org/poetry/kubla-khan.html
[angel, Jan 30 2002, last modified Oct 21 2004]

Kubla Khan't?
-- angel, Jan 30 2002


Beaut
-- thumbwax, Jan 30 2002


Dylan Thomas next please, he's Welsh
-- po, Jan 30 2002


[jutta], [PeterSealy] and [blissmiss] are the only ones mentioned. I'm not entirely certain that's adequate.
-- phoenix, Jan 30 2002


Where can I find these "caves of vice"?
-- pottedstu, Jan 30 2002


You are an angry man GTR.
-- mcscotland, Jan 30 2002


*SIGH* Looks like the person from Porlock's here. (Coleridge deletes Porlock's user account and restores entire poem from backup tapes.)
-- pottedstu, Jan 30 2002


Applause, goff. Nicely done.

I've just about had enough of dear Georgie here.
-- waugsqueke, Jan 30 2002


Croissants and plaudits all round goff. I want to give this two or three bready breakfast buns, but you shall have to settle for one!
-- The_Englishman_Abroad, Jan 30 2002


[GTR] it's like this - you see this category is ideas for a Half-bakery song (and also poems as you will note, and no I don't think we should make jutta create another category just for poems). Therefore, I have put up my idea for a half-bakery poem (inspired, I must say, by UnaBubba's post on ...ooh I can't remember now...).
You really don't get it do you?
(And you're right, I am very clever, thanks for noticing)
[pottedstu] Well spotted.. correction in the post, as it were...
-- goff, Jan 31 2002


Very nice :)
-- La-La, Jan 31 2002


Would you look at that... he's outdone himself.
-- waugsqueke, Jan 31 2002


Took him long enough!
-- angel, Jan 31 2002


Just when we thought UnaBubba was out, goff pulled him back in.

Nice work UB. And goff too, t'was a poem of outstanding merit.
-- CoolerKing, Jan 31 2002


I think the point is made; everyone but GTT will get it.
-- StarChaser, Jan 31 2002


Damn Damn Damn Damn and Damn - Wow
-- thumbwax, Jan 31 2002


hi Star, have you renamed him GT T? oh dear I am slow today. well done.
-- po, Jan 31 2002


Yes he has
-- thumbwax, Jan 31 2002


UB, the rest of us might as well just turn off our keyboards now. I can't imagine any of us outdoing what [goff] and you have managed to fit to verse. Well done...Very well done.
-- jurist, Feb 01 2002


[StaChaser] Very good (I am assuming I have red you correctly and that the T refers to another small garden bird whose name also means something else).
However, I have looked up my book of British Birds and I'm afraid their is no 'Small-Brained Tit'. Guess the anology will just have to remain less than perfect...
-- goff, Feb 01 2002


inspired. Simply inspired.
-- The_Englishman_Abroad, Feb 01 2002


This is Just to Say

I have eaten
the half croissant
that was on
your website

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
I threw up on your rug
It was so stale
and fungal
-- pottedstu, Feb 01 2002


And Wiliam Carlos Williams chimes in for those of us who enjoy poetry in the open form as well...Thanks for the plum of a parody, [pottedstu]
-- jurist, Feb 02 2002


[George the Robin] If you were clever, you'd get of your medium sized horse, and write a response here in verse. I think the gauntlet has been sufficiently laid down.
-- Zircon, Feb 02 2002


Goff, remember I'm not British. 'Troll' is the acronym alteration.
-- StarChaser, Feb 02 2002


"Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!" I shrieked, upstarting: "Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!
Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my loneliness unbroken! Quit the bust above my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!"
Quoth the Robin, "Nevermore."
-- CoolerKing, Feb 02 2002


Take thy head from out thy arse, and darken not the 'bakery door!"

this sure aint Wordsworth - but its a UB classic.
-- po, Feb 02 2002


A chance to add my latest dit

No hint of fun or endless wit

I love this place, You'd all agree

Vote for me? my edless plea!

Does it suck or is it cool

or fishbone that persistant fool

We're all just looking for a vote

so here i'll end on that happy note

Don't dismiss the strange idea

cos in the end.... that's why we're here??!!!
-- gizmo, Feb 02 2002


wish I could do one of those clever ((((((clap)))))) things!
-- po, Feb 02 2002


//Tell me how The Cheating Game will make the world a better place,
//Quoth the trollster, "Shutcha face."

I didn't think it'd be possible to improve on a classic like The Raven (half of the reason why I didn't even try). OK, so Poe probably wouldn't approve (even if Po does), but once again you've outdone yourself UB. Do you think he'll get the point yet?
-- CoolerKing, Feb 02 2002


Giz: I think you're so truly absolutely supercalfrajalisticexpialidoshus....
-- arora, Feb 02 2002


pedant alert, spelling - arora; Supercallifragilisticexpialidocious
-- po, Feb 02 2002


fonetic?
-- arora, Feb 02 2002


prob!
-- po, Feb 02 2002


tsk tsk Mary Po/pinns, it's "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" - no consecutive l's.
-- thumbwax, Feb 03 2002


Time well spent
-- thumbwax, Feb 04 2002


Typical. I finally come up with an idea that gets universal praise, and UB steals my thunder again. Bugger!!
[StarChaser] Obviously I am far too parochial. I just liked the small bird analogy. Obviously you are the one who invented it, but I can't help thinking to myself every time I see GTT that George really is a complete tit (even if he is a Troll as well)
-- goff, Feb 04 2002


Well, to be the inspiration for greatness, there's a thing.
-- goff, Feb 04 2002


Imitation is the sincerest form of flattening ones ego
-- thumbwax, Feb 04 2002


Well everyone else was eulagising about your contributions, UB, so I thought it deserved the adjective.
Lithium-ion is the sincerest form of battery
-- goff, Feb 04 2002


I guess I missed most of the GTR thing (good for me). It certainly appears that GTR has served as a puissant muse for poetic efforts.
-- bristolz, Feb 05 2002


Please, GTR is not Georgie.
-- georgie, Feb 19 2002


fret not Georgie, or is it georgie (now he was a head case!- only kidding)
-- po, Feb 19 2002


Well, this all seems a bit one sided, so in the spirit of a good tussle I'm hoping George is composing a response. But in the meantime, in an effort to set the mood of the calm before the storm....

George, feeling his brain slip, Finds his every feather the fossil of a murder.

Who murdered all these? These living dead, that root in his nerves and his blood Till he is visibly black?

How can he fly from his feathers? And why have they homed on him?

Is he the archive of their accusations? Or their ghostly purpose, their pining vengeance? Or their unforgiven prisoner?

He cannot be forgiven.

His prison is the earth. Clothed in his conviction, Trying to remember his crimes

Heavily he flies.....

....until.....<<<kettle drums>>>.....
-- notripe, Feb 20 2002


THE SHAVEN
by Amos Allan Kito
Half a poem. Apologies to E.A.Poe and everybody else :-)

Once upon a time, my dearies,
I returned to check the theories
That I had submitted to half-bakery the night before.
While perusing my collection,
Came the sound of cat ejection
Launching yet another feline into Northern Singapore.
Only this, and then two more.
It was with determination
That I typed my ruminations,
My remaining brain cells dripping,
Dripping in an open drawer.

They’d enjoy my entries now I thought,
This time ‘fer shore’.

So I felt a new elation
Til I read the annotation
“Too insipid, we despise it. And you misspelled pompadour”.
Only fish, and nothing more.

It was causing mucho tension to come up with some invention.
I began perchance to dream and then began, perchance, to snore.
In an hour of fitful naption, rose an aerial contraption,
Alternately filling and deflating bags of gaseous spore.
I awoke, to type some more.
Ozone Piper, Neutron Diaper, Cattle Gripper, Auto-Zipper,
All were great ideas so the “plus” did I hope for.
But I found that I was doom’ed when a member, nicely groom’ed,
Went and dropped another loathsome sign of minus at my door.

Quoth the Shaven, “Albacore”.

Though my room is dark and murky,
I troll not, nor do I lurky.
Why then does it seem I never ever get a decent score?
Quoth the Shaven, “Albacore”.

Lost within my heated fever, I was busy as a beaver.
Tapping, pounding out inventions made my metacarpals sore.
Cactus Glider, Pimple Hider, Poodle Cutter, Belly Butter.
Also an idea to protect a Spanish matador.
But I looked to count the cost, and found another Teleost;
The dried-up little bony icon frequently I’d seen before.

Only fish, and nothing more.

Yet in time upon my brisket, half a slice of crusty biscuit,
Suddenly appeared, and glowed, and cast my shadow on the floor.
Feeling I was kind of starving, I got up and started carving
On the bread, and got a slice of lemon… wanna know what for?
Quoth the Shaven,
“Albacore”.
-- Amos Kito, Oct 07 2002


Bravo. This should be compulsory reading for all potential halfbakers.

Here's GeorgeTheRobin's annos (retrieved from the wayback machine), to help put the other annos in context:

Wheres the idea in this? This is a forum for ideas in case you didnt realise. Please read the HELP section in future. [marked-for-deleti*n] reason - not an idea.

GeorgeTheRobin, Jan 30 2002

"redundant - a very similar idea already exists on the halfbakery" this is a direct quote from the help page saying why an "idea" should be marked for deletion. There are a number of witty/psuedo intellectual word plays already on here , lets get back to something original thanks. [later] note i didnt fishbone this idea , i think its a good poem etc and SO clever of you to come up with this , however according to the help section this is just the wrong place to put it.

GeorgeTheRobin, Jan 30 2002
-- xaviergisz, Nov 01 2006


Loved Amos' take on The Raven. Hadn't seen it before.
-- DrBob, Nov 01 2006



random, halfbakery