Giacomo Casanova’s To Do List:

“Cheating is a sin, but honest cunning is simply prudence. It is a virtue. To be sure, it has a likeness to roguery, but that cannot be helped. He who has not learned to practice it is a fool.”

― Giacomo Casanova

do study Theology
do give thyself to God
learning the ways of the cloth

do meet the sisters
do give myself to the sisters
vigorously

no, not nuns (never nuns)
such sacrilege!

but yes, actual birth sisters
simultaneously, generously

do cast off the cloth;
theology can wait

do attend concerto
do listen to the male soprano
becoming captivated, by him?

must learn more- and
-ah, there it is;
an imposter, a woman

do give myself into
her womb for certainty
leaving my seed for her
to harvest our bastard

do attend carnival
saving nobleman from certain death
do get that bread (receive reward)

do go gambling
meeting bewitching courtesan
try not to get seduced and swindled

having failed that
duel one of courtesan’s many lovers
do for money, honor, to save face
or whatever

do prevail, wounding the scallywag
do look over my shoulder
continue doing this forever

do visit France
do learn French
do the French landlady’s daughter

do confuse and seduce
fourteen-year-old girl
trailing her to convent
while she carries my seed

do not contemplate if
this is the vilest task
I have ever completed

having failed at not
contemplating this atrocity
do hold my ale

do meat the sisters (not a typo)
yes, nuns, hun, has to be nuns
to ignore them is sacrilege!

do solicit coitus-ravaged nuns’ help
in wooing underage lover
and maybe do give myself
to one or two more

I dunno
maybe let a monk or pastor
watch a few times?

(try not get arrested for indecency)

having failed this
do escape from prison
with a monk accomplice

do change name, do change game
get that bread, get new threads

try not to squander wealth
again
on actresses, debutantes,
indiscriminate common strumpets

having failed this
(again)
try not to fall into debt

do change name again
after falling into debt again

do save friend’s debutante wife
from unwanted pregnancy with him
via unlawful, dangerous abortion

or, having failed to abort
do try ending pregnancy
via my mystic doggy-style

failing this as well
just say “oh well”
leaving them to their fate
what’s done is done

but do refuse on principal
to become a son’s dad
and granddad, by refusing to
impregnate one of my countless
illegitimate daughters

I do have my limits, sir!
I may be a lecherous cheat
but I am no monster!

after careful consideration
do agree to become my son’s
dad and granddad by- well

(probably see where this is going)

do lean into becoming a mystic
becoming a cultist, claiming to
resurrect the dead

do go ahead and
get that bread
from true-believers
who still pray

never overstay

let’s see, what else?
oh, I dunno
become a librarian, I guess?

do brag about all the shagging
do write it all down
do name names

do set aside enough time
to regret and learn
absolutely nothing

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Written for NaPoWriMo Day 9 Prompt:

“The fun of this prompt is to make it the “to-do list” of an unusual person or character. For example, what’s on the Tooth Fairy’s to-do list? Or on the to-do list of Genghis Khan? Of a housefly? Your list can be a mix of extremely boring things and wild things. For example, maybe Santa Claus needs to order his elves to make 7 million animatronic Baby Yoda dolls, to have his hat dry-cleaned to get off all the soot it picked up last December, and to get his head electrician to change out the sparkplugs on Rudolph’s nose.”

NaPoWriMo Day 9 Prompt:

I may have had a bit too much fun with this one …