A Parody of Product-Placement Propaganda
(with apologies to William Shakespeare's Henry V*)

About the title:

Four “p”s in sequence mark alliteration,
Alluding to ("suggesting") urination.
If such you’ve gleaned from just these sounds alone,
You’ve got the point, perceptive Anglophone.
With your agreement, then, let us commence
To sing, because the sounds support the sense. ...

CHORUS:

Wanted: a hack for hire who would descend
The darkest depths of Disbelief's suspension.
TVs for a stage, dunces to act,
And morons to consume the threadbare theme.

Then should the Precious Peacock, him or her,
Put on the bomber jacket while the troops,
Like gladiators chained, prepare to fight
And for the mob's enjoyment, die. But wait!
We promise that with each new show you'll learn,
Again, Brave Audience, what we have taught:
That nothing real concerns you, so relax
And let us your attention span beguile.

Don't touch that dial (or digital remote)!
We'll be right back with further plots and schemes
Designed to glue your eyes and ears and minds
To images that flicker and move on
To be replaced with advertisements glib
Exhorting you to buy expensive stuff
Of which you've neither need nor can afford
But must from your exhausted credit borrow.

Brave Audience, if we have done our jobs
Your courage, once projected on our work,
Will serve, we trust, to fill in all the blanks
Which otherwise might mar, through glaring gaps,
The inconsistent logic of this tale.
Blink, when we show you dragons belching flames
And feel your skin begin to warm, then cringe.
Your thoughts, suppressed, have nothing they need do
At Warp Speed, through black holes, you'll conquer time.

Whole galaxies will fly apart, then merge
Into an episode on Friday night
Of Fragrant Perspiration: Season Six.
When nothing matters anyway, why not?
So sit and stare, and we'll supply, the rot.

* NOTE on Shakespeare's PROLOGUE to Henry V

Enter Chorus

Chorus:

O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention,
A kingdom for a stage, princes to act
And monarchs to behold the swelling scene!
Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,
Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,
Leash'd in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire
Crouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,
The flat unraised spirits that have dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth
So great an object: can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?
O, pardon! since a crooked figure may
Attest in little place a million;
And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,
On your imaginary forces work.
Suppose within the girdle of these walls
Are now confined two mighty monarchies,
Whose high upreared and abutting fronts
The perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:
Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;
Into a thousand parts divide one man,
And make imaginary puissance;
Think when we talk of horses, that you see them
Printing their proud hoofs i' the receiving earth;
For 'tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,
Carry them here and there; jumping o'er times,
Turning the accomplishment of many years
Into an hour-glass: for the which supply,
Admit me Chorus to this history;
Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,
Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

Exit