Parody-ations on a Theme

If you’ve had high school English, there’s a very good chance you’ve read this poem by William Carlos Williams:

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

This is a wonderful and very well-known poem.  It’s one of my favorites, although I don’t know if that maybe makes me a little bit clichéd.  But in my writing workshop tonight, we read some “variations on a theme” (ahem, parodies) based on this poem, such as this one by Kenneth Koch:

I chopped down the house that you had been saving to live in next summer.

I am sorry, but it was morning, and I had nothing to do

and its wooden beams were so inviting.

(There were several more, but that one, to me, is especially perfect.)

The final part of the exercise was to write our own variations.  Here, for your amusement or disgust, whichever, are my contributions:

I shot your purebred Greyhound this morning

the one you were training for the dog show.

Forgive me.  It kept me up all night.

I broke in through your window last night

to take back the wrench you borrowed.

Forgive me, for my faucet was dripping.

I am sorry I stabbed you in the eye.

Please understand, I was bored,

and you wear really hideous glasses.