NARRATOR 1

“To play or to die”

NARRATOR 2

“To lay or to lie”

NARRATOR 3

“It’s really quite simple:

The grammar rule goes like this

As they teach you in school:

Use ‘lay’ when you’re laying

And use ‘lie’ when you’re lying”

INTERLUDE:

If you wish to go horizontal from vertical

You may use either lie or lay

Depending on the present and the past

And how long your smelly fart did last!

NARRATOR 4:

“If you did not receive a present

There’s nothing else to say

You should yourself lie down

Unless “yourself” is no object be

Then better to lay you down the object

That has no object other than the rule”

NARRATOR 5:

“Now when you come to ‘laid and lain’

And ‘would have lain’ and ‘could have laid’

Plus pluperfect conditional and subjunctive sense

Followed by progressive imperfect in the present tense

You must choose according to grammatical need”

NARRATOR 1:

“If you like ‘to lay’ then by all means lay it on

Though watch out for ‘lay’

Deceptively masquerading

As the past tense of ‘to lie’

While bumping elbows with ‘lay’

As in the present tense of ‘to lay’”

“To lie is to fall down flat kersplat and remain motionless

During dream-mind’s mindless unconsciousness

And no one will question your lay or lie

Neither will I / as either will do 

Don’t worry if you don’t know

Heck neither do they!”

NARRATOR 2:

“To lie is to make up a story / fart on the truth

Say something knowingly false / distort the facts

In court the judge will ask you “ Are you lying?”

Not “Are you laying?” unless you as witness

Already laid with the defendant’s horizontal

“This could be perceived as perjury if you were

Lying about your laying and said you weren’t,

So ‘tis better to admit one lie than to deny a lie

Or make that ‘lay’ if you were lying to conceal

The fact you were laying with the defendant

Who was lying to protect your laying:

Now who is lying?”

TO THE READER:

There are 5 narrators in the above poem.

Three of them have told at least one lie.

Only two have told nothing but the grammarian truth.

Can you tell who the two are?

Now I lay me down me pen

Me lying days are through!