The Parody Corner

On Facebook I put up the lines, "The way you hold your knife, the way we danced
until three, the way you changed my life. ."

Within seconds Laura Orem completed the thought ("No, no, they can't take that way from me.") and minutes later Lise Haines weighed in: "The way you spear my chest, the way the blood spurts out, the way my end
draws near, no, you can't take that away from me, no, you can't take
that away from me. . ."

One hour later came this from David Shapiro: "the way you read your
haikui.the way you split our bed/.the way you built a shed/. oh no
they leave me here for dead/ the way you improvd all the way you never
took a fall /the way you ruined my life, oh yes they try to occupy
all space /the way your smile just loathed the way your tea.. /was poison/the way there was nothing
else/oh no it made me feel like dropping dead/ we may always always meet
like Em on the stony stony carriage or two/ but I'll never never
lose the lost and found it's true/ The way you liked Celkne,m the way
you sipped New York / the way your teeth just beamed oh yes/ you;ve
taken all away from me yes you;ve taken all away from me…."

"So much for romance," said Laura Orem, and Cathy McArthur Palermo remarked, "True comedy."

And I couldn't resist taking part:

The way you change my words
the way we disagree
the whistle of the birds
no no they can't take that away from me (2)

We may never never eat again
at the swanky Tour d'Argent [Ar-jen]
but your Tirasmisu
is as sweet as you
were then —

The way you changed my mind
the smell of your budding rose
the night we wined and dined
and then when you took off all your clothes

Yes, and then you took them off
you took them all right off
you took off all your clothes for me

That's what I wrote. Leonard Orr commented that the string reminded him of Kenneth Koch's "Variations on a Theme by William Carlos Williams."

Then Lera Auerbach observed, "Just switch the order and the meaning
changes completely – from love to death just a line away." Thus:

The way you
changed my life,
the way we danced until three,
the way you
hold your knife…