Depth Charge

          Heavily derivative lightweight farce
              to begin with:
          hastily selected setting
          rudimentarily erected
          full of easygag caricature
 

          Plotting out to fuller length
              comes inflation:
          taking on of depth and breadth
          stumbling onto more enduring
          themes and schemes and twists
 

          Besides wheezy longerwindedness
              what results:
          profound contrast to original
          plot knotted into paradoxical
          pretzels unrealized till too late.

Originally published in Happy Lamb
(Kirkland, WA: David Bissell)
Number 8, November 1991

Copyright © 1991, 2004  by P. S. Ehrlich

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