"sorry sorry sarcasm" Or, "The Epic Ballad & Lay of Bullmouse"

"I'm sorry!" I objected, 
"but I really am going to have 
to respond sarcastically to that!"

"Sarcasm being no main mode 
of mine," I go on, "I find I go on
sincerity and fulsome candor! 
These pack the punch 
with spiked jolt and sweet, 
beautiful juice! But I can't 
help aim what I mean - and" 

Thinking,

"...your remark just now finds 
sarcasm! - alien, unaccountable 
sarcasm rising within me 
to respond!" 

Pause for afterthought. 

"I had to warn you!" 

Pause for impassively-faced 
frantic backtrack hindsight 
thought-train rerail to derail
tangent rollercoaster loop 
and scootch back up the big 
hump clackety-clackety-slower 

and-slow-clack-clack 

Pause for pleading but impudent 

look. 

She felt mercy blow. "Did you
forget what you were going to say?" 

She observed placidly? With 
some fairness. "Should I" 

pause for how-to-put

"Repeat myself?" 

NOW! 

THE OPENING!  

DECISION TIME:

I can respond curt and pert 
serene: "No thank you, you 
plausibly mightn't have said 
it at first." OR! 

"Yes, please. Thank you that 

would be very helpful."  

I boldly chose the ladder
to chute down and feet-first
fall forward, feet and body
fumbling and recovering
poise. Perfect for me!

For that is my deal! Sheepish
and meek as the merest 
bull mouse! So I aim
in courteous deference 
to charge all things bright, clear 
and hard, for the fair response 

I deserve. I fence!
I parry thrust
with a thrust my own!  
I feint no
blows 

by rapier, foil 
or consequence. It's then! 
Pardon me 
It's Now!
I become the halberdier! 

And whip out my poleax 
to find it bent. It is not 

in tact 

that I stay my blows. It is only 
I saw
my gaudy axe-head-spear 
didn't fit
in the crevice-crack
I saw in their case.

I'm too big for it. To cleave 
asunder by crack-artificially-widened so
in pinpoint sundering strike?

Then stand back agape, 
in shocked surprise, and pointing
- "Look how big a crack your case
always had!" And perhaps 

pretending to be distracted 
by something else. Stray thought, 
objects available by surroundings, eyes off
and away, lips whistling tunelessly after,
innocent hands clasped behind back - that
pretentious pose! - poleax vanished by
magician's trick! 

That's not my style.  

Instead, seeing it won't fit in the crack 
legitimately, I shift it hand to hand and
brandish this huge threatening weapon 
they almost saw with cheer! And I chide them,

"It's only a lolly pop! Made of metal and wood,
confected sweet by a jolly grim smith of candies
and other lethal implements! Now, forget about that."

My case complete. 

No one ever discovers what my own crack 
might have been. The sarcastic one. 

It slips from me during fair warning, 
which - it'd be kind of a rum deal, 
me skipping that stage of rapids 
negotiation! That's how boats 
end up riven on rocks! 

If pressed for it, I lamely volunteer, 
"Oh, I was torn between 'oh, REALLY,'
'THANKS a LOT!',
 'PUH-LEEZE,' and

'Well ex-CUUUUUSE, ME!'"

They'll have their pick of those 
to bat right back in my face, 

but if they do, it's on. 

You see,
I am the master of deft, just 
repartee, and I'll never admit
having lost any match I've won. 

Typically I aim too big for that:

Truest, tried-and-bandied pure 
repartee matches end with the big 
WIN/WIN in mutual gain of 

RESPECT. 

Seriously.

Try it and see, it
works!