Thursday, April 10, 2025

"A speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would set down"

 The Ballard* of Darth Sidious 

by Owen Smith

(to be read in the voice of Emperor Palpatine)


Oh, you may think that I'm nice

But don't judge on what you see

I'll zap myself with lightning 

If you can find a worse Sith than me!


You can keep your sabers red

But blue and green beware!

You may find yourself getting

Quite a scare!


You might be like old Qui-Gon,

To whom Darth Maul I did send!

But chopped in half by Obi-Wan

Is how Maul's life did end!


Now Tyrannus or Dooku,

(Count Dooku, if you will)

Was a real shot to take

But Skywalker did kill.


Old Mace I wasn't sorry

At all to see go,

It sealed my new apprentice

Which to the Jedi is a huge blow!


Over onto Mustafar

My new apprentice I do send.

His name now is Darth Vader,

But what's this? I feel the force bend?


"Prepare my ship!" I tell a clone

Who is already busy.

Taking out order sixty-six

Is no glass of fizzy!


In the next few years there was no rest

In the galaxy anywhere.

The rebel scum stealing our plans

Was no happy affair!


Lord Vader, my apprentice true,

Simply was enraged,

When even when he was on the same ship

As the Death Star plans caged.


He could not recover what was lost,

And when a droid's mission ended,

It spelled "doom" for the Empire

And impossible to mend it!


Red Five (Skywalker) did blow it up,

And Vader shot off course,

With a "Yahoo!" from Solo.

Remore, remorse, remorse!


But we recovered rather quick,

And with Echo Base discovered,

Solo is froze in carbonate

Luke's Dad is not as dead as his Mother!


Forget Tarkin, forget Vader,

To them I'll put the lid!

I'll do as I did to Anakin,

"JUST BRING ME THAT KID!"


Ewoks, a space battle, even some sabers!

I could almost laugh!

"Hey, what are you doing picking me up?"

"IS THAT A REACTOR SHAFT?!?!"



*A ballard is a traditional form of rhyming quatrains probably invented by Robert Doctor Ballard, discoverer of the Titanic


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