PRELUDE TO A KISS, AND VICE-VERSA
(The real story behind the Lyrical Ballads)

(The year, 1798. Sound of daffodils shrieking in the Cumberland wind. Enter Rick Wordsworth and Sister Dorothy, dragging Barcalounger filled with Samuel Taylor Catspaw).

RICK: "I wandered lonely as a seven pin, That ---"
DOROTHY: Doesn't scan, doesn't scan, doesn't scan: Amphimacer Trimeter, brother! That of course is a long, long way from Iambic Pentameter.
(Rick looks up at falling fell, stifling urge to whistle World War I songs up sister's bonnet. Sees gigantic National Trust billboard: "YOU ARE IN THE LAKE DISTRICT: NO BILLBOARDS!" Rick goes back to poetic meditation)
.DOROTHY: Brother, think clouds, daffodils! (Points at daffodils no longer there, having been eaten by groundhogs).
RICK: "I hit the pocket with my locket!" Well, maybe.
STC: (takes big gulp out of Morpho-Cola bottle) "It was an ancient bowling ball, that stoppeth one of three", so I didn't make the spare.
DOROTHY: You are drunk again, Samuel.
RICK: "Bowling Green, Bowling Green, prettiest place I ever seen". Hmmmm.
STC: (Delirious) "And with my gun, I slew the Katherine Ross." (sound of "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head" in 1798 Dolby analog. In distance, Pinkerton men can be seen approaching on horseback.)
RICK: "Lake Windermere was shining like a National Trust guitar". No, drat.
STC: (Even more delirious) "And with my mouth, I blew the assum's poss."
DOROTHY: Who are those guys? (Pinkerton men come closer, bearing uncanny resemblance to Reg and Reg,).
STC: (Raises himself to precarious perch on Barcalounger) Beloved Dorothy, sister to best of chums, I have a confession to make. It is you I worship from afar, and up close if I can.
RICK: (Plucks strings from 12 string Takamine) "She loves me, she loves me not, she loves me, she loves me not". (Hurls guitar at distant sheep, bearing a strong resemblance to a cross between Mark and Shania Twain). Damn 9 string guitars anyway!
DOROTHY: Explain yourself, STC!
STC: What do a bowling ball, an assum's poss ocarina, and your backside have in common? Answer: smooth roundness, and finger holes!!!
RICK(noodling as ever): ""From little Ochs do mighty Fieldings grow". No. drat."
DOROTHY (in a huff). " That's it, I am leaving. I have had it with men! (sheep on hillside perks up). Women, here I come. (sheep perks back down again)
RICK: " Sister dear, is this the prelude to some rash act?"
DOROTHY: "Beloved brother, go kiss -- Your bowling ball is under your Prelude."
(Two Pinkerton men arrive. In cloud of dust, Reg and Reg twirl mustaches, which fall off, revealing Folkfyre girls.)
DOROTHY: "Ladies, just in time!" (Folkfyre girls and Dorothy get into Huff, drive off into the sunset together. Night falls. Fell falls. Niagara Falls. Slowly I turn, step by step.)
STC: "Though nothing can bring back the splendour of her --"
RICK: Oh, shut up.
STC: "In Xanadu did Newton-John" --
RICK: "Why did I ever start this thread? Fair seedtime had my soul, and....wait a minute!!!!"
THE END
Yours, Peter T.