Art:Year of the Monkey Chanties
Year of the Monkey Chanties was the first familiar event on the Midnight Ocean. Participants were given just over one day to create and post a chanty of any form to the Y!PP Forums. The only restriction was that the chanties must be about monkies.
Pokey won a brown monkey for his effort[1], reproduced in its entirety below. Jellomold took the runner up prize for including an audio file[2] of him singing his own chanty[3].
Pokey's Winning Entry
Chimp and She
The pirate sought the seven seas and so to Coral cruised,
her pockets empty, heart still brave, her sword-arm scarcely used.
Of life's red dawn she drank her fill, and yet could be accused,
of longing for companionship, on which she thusly mused:
"Why don't I find a parrot friend to keep myself enthused?"
And so she told a parrot of the bounty of the sea,
"You'll see the world in style if you come along with me,
we'll loot by sea and see the loot comes in abundantly,
We'll whistle chanties pleasantly and keep each other near the key
and most of all together we will live from care and fetter free!"
The parrot said, "Why should I care for fortune or for fame?
I need no sword, and as for clothes, my disdain is the same.
My plumage suits me better than that low cut suits you, dame,"
she squawked, then took flight from her perch toward which the ale mug came,
"and most of all, with wings like these, I never need be tame."
The lass scowled wide and pulled her bodice closer to her frame.
The pirate saw the seven seas and then to Ruby sailed,
well-salted now and stocked with gold from brigands she had felled,
a wayward wench with nerves of steel but heartstrings more like weld,
whose resolution ne'er to love so resolutely held,
she softened when an octopus behind her cutter trailed.
"O octopus," she gently cooed, "you'll never leave me blue,
O gentle prince of mollusks twice times four times nobly true,
You'll help me open up my rum and handsome sailors woo,
and though I haven't any clue about your intake of O2
I'm sure that you'll enjoy the view, so won't you think my offer through?"
The octopus bobbed in the brine and looked her in the eye,
considered sixteen viewpoints and at last made his reply.
"Although," he burbled, "it is true I long to touch the sky,
A life of crime with quadrupeds? 'Twould make my mother cry."
Said she, "Well, then I've got some clothes that I would like to dye,"
But 'neath the waves he ducked before she let her poniard fly.
The pirate swept the seven seas and then to Emerald flew,
and tried to pick herself a man from your unsightly crew.
For violence this part's been excised, but just so you aren't scandalized,
his wounds were thoroughly cauterized, and one eye's good as two.
The pirate feared in seven seas now plundered Sapphire shores,
swashbuckleress illustrious with followers in scores,
hoarse whispering death, the landsmen said (from behind bolted doors)
but one last time she parted from her solitary mores
aforaging the Horseshoe Crabs between successful wars.
"My primate mate," she said, "I will not gild the lily much,
I've always seen my kith and kin as something of a crutch,
I dearly love the life I've led, estranged and out of touch;
strange as it seems, I seem to need no confidant, as such."
"You're out of whack," the monkey said, expecting fireworks to come.
But time and tide had tempered temper and she took him quite aback.
"Just share my rum." She offered some. "My drink's arrack," said monkey back,
"but as I sorely feel the lack I think I'll see what's in that sack."
The pirate loved in seven seas in Opal waters sat,
nearing her end, the final leg, her lifetime's soft sunset,
Elysian few she hoped to join; for Norse, the course was set.
Her legacy was strength and kindness; independence, yet
an openness to drink and friends that left her no regret.
As her first friend, I make this toast; now get your gullets wet.
And never say a chimpanzee can't rhyme a mean couplet.
Jellomold's Entry
The Cursed Treasure of the Monkey Ship The Blathering Wit
This tail begins in a far away land
On an ocean deep and blue
On a mythical ship called the Blathering Wit
Sailed by a monkey crew
The story be told she be laden with gold
pillaged off the Santa Anna
But if rumour be true I say me to you
Be it a bunch o bananas
She anchored herself in Simians Cove
Off the island of Makak
The treasure be buried at the top of a hill
That be known as the Monkey's Back
They say that that place there once lived a race
Of primates wearing bandanas
But if rumour be true I say me to you
It be a bunch o bananas
Now listen me matey and listen real good
A curse protects that booty
The last poor pirate that laid his eyes on it
Returned a little fruity
The changes had already started to happen
There's nothing we could do
A terrible sight
The price that he paid is now
He's a monkey too
I'm told I'm a loon for telling this tale
That I'm the rump of a llama
But if rumour be true I say me to you
Be it a bunch o bananas
