Pip-Beard Post: The Ballad of Burly Burt

Hi, this is Ben. Don't forget to sign up for our giveaway, I'm doing a painting for the winner!

I always feel like I should explain these posts since they are not necessarily usual. I like to write little poems sometimes, and as with most things I create, I can't actually explain where they come from or where I get ideas, so I don't really have an explanation for this poem except that I thought it would be funny to rhyme a bunch of words that sounded like "urt." The rest just came out.

Burly Burt had on a shirt
He'd learnt to be right curt
His arms were burnt
His moustache curlt
He slurred his dirty words

Four kooky cops came clambering
Caps clasped in crooked claws
To catch a crabby chambermaid
Who'd broken all their laws

Big Burly Burt was quite unnerved
He sawr it all proceed
They dragged her cursing, cane and cape
The strangest sight he'd seed

And Burly Burt got angry
He burst out from the door
He roared "have mercy on the girl,
you'll dash her on the floor."

But kooky cops, they cannot catch
Complaints called out this way
They crammed her crosswise in the car
Where she did kick, but stay

So Burly Burt tore off his shirt
And bared his brazen breast
With bellowing he bashed their brains
Then went inside, to rest

And Millicent, her name it was
Climbed up his quiet stair
And Burly Burt undid the door
To sit her on a chair

He looked into her face, so plain
And said, “Your eyes are two,
I'd like it if you married me.”
To which she said, “I do.”

And there they clung together
Dear Millicent and Burt
While lay the coppers conked outside
Their corpses cold, inert

As a counterpoint to the poem, here's a song I wrote for Katie last week:



Whenever I try to write songs they always end up slightly melancholy, even if I begin with a happy idea. I sometimes feel that I could take on a certain persona that would allow me to write a happy song, but I have trouble doing this in a way that feels true, so I generally just let the melody develop as it occurs and it usually turns out sounding a little sad or lonely. I guess I just have a touch of sadness in my soul. :-)