The Shaking Hand

[helgi]

If a foot in the door is to be gotten,

Make liquid all the saints,

And bend the face contarily

With stately nasal grace,

Thrust the shaking hand,

Like a dog with better tricks,

And thrust the hand again,

'Till diplomacy is sick,

Stand before the Mona,

If she ever comes outside,

Pretend that you are moaning,

When my flesh and blood walks by

I was able to set the last two divisions to music, and had a good melody resulting.

This poem remains in the imperitive, I would say, which is a symbol of initiative. I hadn't noticed until after I had written the poem that it was consistent this way, and that it symbolizes command while conferring how to be false, suggesting a narrator who has gained initiative through being false. Of course, I think it is understood as a sarcasm of false diplomacy, and doubting its depths. But I think the last division is cryptic, because the supposed narrator refers to himself, almost pridefully over who he would instruct.

...I also noticed after writing the riddle that thrust could be changed for trust, as the master of a dog is reffered to as an autonomous hand in our culture when we say don't bite the hand that feeds you. And diplomacy is made sick, one might say, or diminished, by trusting when another is false.

http://www.geocities.com/estreightoff@s ... iddle.html