Robert Browning's "My Last Duchess" - Parody

My Last Breakfast

That’s my last breakfast splattered on the wall,
Looking as if it were alive. I call
That piece a wonder, now: My mother’s ham
Was rancid that day, and there it stands.
Will’t please you sit and look at it? I said
My mother was the cook, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured masterpiece,
The depth and passion of its bacon grease,
But to myself you may turn (since none shows by
What cause I have heaved for you, but I)
And seem as you would ask me, if you durst,
How such an upchuck came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Friends, ‘twas not
My mother’s ham only that called that spot
Of many colors onto the wall: for my
Mother had chanced to say, “That fork by
Which you have eaten was filthy,” and “Spoiled,
This bacon is, and might make you produce a full
Gut-thrust that spills from your throat:” such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, but ‘twas enough
For coughing up that hunk of pork. I had
A gut--how shall I say?--too soon made bad,
Too easily distressed; I like whate’er
She cooks for me, but that meal went everywhere.
Friends, ‘twas one puke! The mold in the bread,
The leaving of the shells in the eggs,
The bowl of Cheerios with the drool
From my foolish brother, the white pool
Of salt in my pancakes--all and each
Did draw from me alike the ensuing heave,
Or gush, at least. I thanked my mother--good! But thanked
Somehow--I know not how--as if I ranked
My hurl of twenty two and a half feet fame
With anybody’s hurl. Who’d stoop to defame
This sport of heaving? Even had I skill
In speech--(which I do not)--to make my will
Quite clear to you my friends, and say, “Just this
Or that in your heave disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark”--and if you let
Yourself be lessoned so, and plainly set
Your gut in it, forsooth, and spill refuse,
Then there would be some good heaving, and I choose
To applaud this. Oh friends, I smile, no doubt,
Whene’er I pass this spot; but who can pass without
Much the same smile? This spot stayed; I gave commands;
Then all of us did admire. There it stands
As if alive. Will’t please you rise? We’ll eat
With the company below, then. I repeat,
My mother’s own cooking of breakfast
Is ample warrant that no just pretense
Of mine for heaving will be disallowed;
Though you my fair friends, as I avowed
At starting, are novices. Nay, we’ll go
Together down, friends. Notice this spot, though--
A heave of my sick horse, thought a rarity,
Which my dear mother cast in bronze for me!