Jeremy's part of a theatre group.
His catchphrase is simply the plural of 'oop'.
He's accident-prone when he stands on the stage.
When he's expressing a torrent of rage

He frequently falls when he trips on a prop,
A table, a chair or a bucket and mop.
He'll try to go on with a mop on his head.
He'll speak of his wife and his brother in bed.

But he can't erase the effect of his gaffes.
The tragic turns comic and everyone laughs.
Even when he doesn't have any lines
His skill at demolishing furniture shines.

His fellow performers are eager to find
The reason why nerves take control of his mind
And blind him to feet that are placed in his path.
Standing on toes or the tail of a cat

Is something he'll do with an audience there
But he's not afraid of the crowd's intense glare.
Only when Sarah is in the front row
Does furniture turn into his most-feared foe.

When his fellow actors discover this fact
They urge him to turn on his charm and his tact
And then talk to Sarah and soon he will learn
There's nothing to fear and his stomach won't churn.

But he says, "I can't. My fear will still rule.
I'll say something stupid and feel like a fool.
I'll have to retreat from this most recent wreck
And press the red button attached to my neck,

"Releasing my head, which will fall to the ground
And land with a deflated basketball sound.
I'll kick my own head and I'll watch as it rolls
Into one of eighteen man-made head-sized holes.

"For this I'll receive warm applause and a prize,
A full year's supply of homemade shepherd's pies.
These I will feed to my head, which will stay
Down in the hole twenty-four hours a day."

They fail to convince him to conquer his dread
So they convince Sarah to join them instead.
They hope he will see there is nothing to fear
And he won't fall over whenever she's near.

At their first rehearsal with her he's afraid.
He thinks of the numerous errors he's made.
He knows he'll soon make a mistake and spread panic
And she'll get engaged to a race car mechanic.

But she gets there first. She trips on a mat
And knocks down a hat stand that holds a brown hat
Which falls on a cat, and covers its eyes.
The fall of the hat fills the cat with surprise

That makes the cat dash back and forth 'cross the floor
And crash into walls before finding the door.
The actors try catching the hat with a hook
Before it moves into the path of a cook

Who's holding a pot that's as big as herself.
The pot's much too big to be stored on a shelf.
She lifts it with ease because she's got four hands,
Though two of them do look like feet when she stands.

She fails to avoid an unfortunate fall.
She trips on the cat and she watches as all
The cabbage is spilled on the carpeted floor.
No one has seen this much cabbage before.

Jeremy smiles. He's filled with delight.
At last he feels free from his nerves and stage fright.
He spends a few hours with Sarah that day.
When they're not discussing their forthcoming play

They talk about fashionable hair styles for mops,
The great art of haggling in second-hand shops,
What you would say while you're hugging a tree,
And how many flies you could fit in a bee.