Recent

Mahogany Row Conversation
Said Mr. Rolls to Mr. Royce,
"We are compelled to make
A critical marketing choice."

Said Mr. Royce to Mr. Rolls,
"We'll build limousines for the King
And the wealthiest of souls."

Said Mr. Rolls to Mr. Royce,
"A demographic extremely small.
You've not been thinking evidently."

Said Mr. Royce to Mr. Rolls,
"Oh, God damn it all to bloody hell--
Offer the less well-off the Bentley!"

St. Peter Speaks of Modern Physics
to Sir Isaac Newton
Ike, old boy, I've got some bad news.
I tried to keep it from you,
But I can no longer hide it.

You know that famous apple of yours?
Now they're going around and saying
There's gravity inside it.

Olfactory
Poets in the days that Miniver Cheevy dreamed about
Wrote often of the sweet odors that gardens embowered.
It is well for us to remember that the loves of those poets
And they themselves seldom bathed and never showered.

January 1, 2013

Atavism
Inside my puppy's rubber toy
A tiny mechanical squeak,
Designed I think to evoke in him
A smaller animal's dying shriek.

Missed
Opportunity knocked on my door.
A second knock, then a third one.
He was wearing thick woolen gloves.
Deaf in one ear, I never heard one.

Titles
Fifty plus years of writing verse.
I read over the long, long list:
So many turns of the mind's millwheel,
Such a heap of mealy grist.

Clerihew: Cody
William Frederick Cody
For his Wild West Show hired many a roadie.
He felt the old urge to kill
When anyone called him American Bison Bill.

Conflict of Interest
Benjamin Franklin smiled,
Signing the Declaration,
Proud of the small part
He'd played in the minting of it,

Though he was disappointed
That somebody else's shop
Would get the government
Contract for the printing of it.

Geometers
The old Euclidean Greeks
Derived from what they did
A great deep pleasure.

They held the big round world
Flat in their minds--and then,
They took its measure.