Occasioned by his Death, and written by Himself.

Prologue
If there was once a hapless chap,
Who loved the world, engaged in crap,
And overall was fairly keen
To leave his audience in spleen,
Then, I bestow before your eyes
A fairly miserly surprise:
A mortal of the middling kind:
Director, philanthrop; and blind,
To all the pleasures of the world
(From those he knew, he�d nearly hurled).
Yes, this is but a tragic tale,
Of one depressed, insecure, frail,
Emotionally-challenged brat
Who at society had spat,
And cursed the paparazzi down
While they were passing through his town;
Engaged in reading of the Swifts,
The Drydens, Miltons and the shifts
In language he would, eager, note.
Under an alias he wrote
His parodies of big and small;
And Swift he liked the best of all.

Directed he the Chronotron; (1)
The hearts of many he had won.
But those who loved him, they were few�
Those who admired him, were true,
And stayed until the bitter end,
When, hapless, he had scarce a friend,
And half a trillion in debt,
Which he had blown on booze and rent.

I�m sure this prelude will suffice
To warn of the exuberant vice
That lies contained in this here poem;
Then let me thus end this small proem.
Allow me now to start my tale
Of this enormous human Fail.

Of all the tales that I did write,
But one stands out as utter shite,
Not for the simple fact that it
Is poorly written or unfit
For human breast or human mind
(Or �cause it came from my behind),
But simply for the fact that it
Depicts a man that�s full of shit.

His shelves, a million books would fill,
Which hadn�t seen the day�until,
To rag and tag the news had broke
That old Untalent would soon croak;
And by the time through town they ran,
His humble shelves were spic and span.
(I�d rather write about his shelf;
Alas, the subject is himself.)

His cronies all adored his tales
Until the time his talents failed
And, try as hard as he would do,
He can�t have written nothing new!
His rambling tales were none the rage;
His poems stretched for twenty page,
And he�d relate through twenty-six
What in two couplets one could fix.

He kindly gave to lesser folk,
But they the devil would invoke
When finding that his charity
Was hardly fit for you and me:
Old rags and garbage he would gift
(Which surely from the streets he�d lift).
His old subscribers, few and rare,
Would compliment him here and there,
But overall he was a hack.
True talent he would, quick, attack,
Yet, what was issued from his pen
Was hardly worth a six from ten.

Finally, once upon a day,
Consented he to pass away.
Oh, what a funeral he had!
(Detractors, doubtless, weren�t too glad!)
But overall, the man was poor;
Of this those close to him were sure!
His friends were wonderful and true,
And would forgive him what was due,
But still, he�d find the gall to curse
Those friends and neighbors in his verse!
And on his headstone they�d agree
To write the following decree:

A talent which no one had known
Resided here, and here had grown,
But one that, kind of like a pest
Would everyone in town molest.
What crud he left to his debtee;
I wish He�ll not now come for me!
And so, we call upon you all�
Those who are big, those who are small:
Denounce the name of this foul brat
Who at society had spat;
Take all the gold from his fair box
(Surely it�s worth a hundred bucks!);
Combine ye water with ye crud,
Make sure ye makes the foulest mud
And send his words�his papers�through the flood!

Epilogue
The paths of glory led him to the grave,
And he his fate accepted, headstrong, brave;
And now along with me I wish you�ll pray.
Except for this, I have not much to say:
While lived, he lived and hardly made a sound;
And once recalled, returned he to the ground.

Notes
(1) www.youtube.com/watch?v=nyzhdNvjiIQ&feature=channel_page.