Harmina Burana

She met composer Orff before she woke

This morning.  It was he her nightmare said.

This nightmare man seemed quite a clashing bloke

With pizza skin and pimples, nosely spread

Across his modern music mug.  She tried

Escaping, as one does, from such a dream

(And from crude music) but her poor brain, fried

With bangs and peasant rhythms, squirmed to scream

To dreamless wakefulness.  Yet fame and fate

Forbade her exit into beauty.  “Who

Are you upon the Wheel of Fortune, mate?”

Her bedroom queried.  “Why endure this zoo?”

  The zoo is human.  That is why.  The priests

    Have cocks.  The kings have whores.  The songs shout, “Beasts!”

~ Phillip Whidden