Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Do vs. Make

 I was in Mexico City a few weeks back and saw a truck with a homemade mud flap that said "The devil made me make it." (Translation of the verb hacer into English presents some problems for Spanish speakers, since it can be translated as do or make.) And so...

The devil made me make it.

1 lizard's toe, 1 eye of frog,
4 hoods of cobra, 1 tongue of dog,
1 chile serrano, 1 dragon's scale,
1 teaspoon arsenic, 1 liver of whale.

Heat cauldron to igneous,
Add ingredients two by two.
Stir occasionally with pitchfork
Until achieving consistency of glue.

Grease 13x9-inch pan with poison
Taken from a blind worm's sting.
Bake 31 days and nights,
Allow to cool and add frosting.

Now the finishing touches,
Just one candle will do,
Write in black bile icing:
Luci, here's to you.

4 comments:

  1. I feel the need to tell you that even your CAPTCHAs appear to be in espanol, as the last one I had was "guell," as in "Parque Guell." If the next one is "Sagradafamilia," I will sense a Gaudi-ist plot.

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  2. Ooooo. They are testing you! All mine have been nonsense words in English...or perhaps I just don't speak English very well anymore.

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  3. I commented on someone else's NaPoem, and the CAPTCHA was "bible." I don't think they're even trying up there in the CAPTCHA creation department. It's just straight-up bibliomancy now.

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