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!