(Poem #248)The State of the Economy
There might be some change on top of the dresser at the back, and we should check the washer and the dryer. Check under the floor mats of the car. The couch cushions. I have some books and CDs I could sell, and there are a couple big bags of aluminum cans in the basement, only trouble is that there isn't enough gas in the car to get around the block. I'm expecting a check sometime next week, which, if we are careful, will get us through to payday. In the meantime with your one— dollar rebate check and a few coins we have enough to walk to the store and buy a quart of milk and a newspaper. On second thought, forget the newspaper. |
The State of the Economy -- Louis Jenkins
I Had a Hippopotamus -- Patrick Barrington
(Poem #247)I Had a Hippopotamus
I had a hippopotamus; I kept him in a shed And fed him upon vitamins and vegetable bread. I made him my companion on many cheery walks, And had his portrait done by a celebrity in chalks. His charming eccentricities were known on every side. The creature's popularity was wonderfully wide. He frolicked with the Rector in a dozen friendly tussles, Who could not but remark on his hippopotamuscles. If he should be affected by depression or the dumps By hippopotameasles or hippopotamumps I never knew a particle of peace 'till it was plain He was hippopotamasticating properly again. I had a hippopotamus, I loved him as a friend But beautiful relationships are bound to have an end. Time takes, alas! our joys from us and robs us of our blisses. My hippopotamus turned out to be a hippopotamissus. My housekeeper regarded him with jaundice in her eye. She did not want a colony of hippopotami; She borrowed a machine gun from her soldier-nephew, Percy And showed my hippopotamus no hippopotamercy. My house now lacks the glamour that the charming creature gave, The garage where I kept him is as silent as a grave. No longer he displays among the motor-tires and spanners His hippopotamastery of hippopotamanners. No longer now he gambols in the orchard in the Spring; No longer do I lead him through the village on a string; No longer in the mornings does the neighborhood rejoice To his hippopotamusically-modulated voice. I had a hippopotamus, but nothing upon the earth Is constant in its happiness or lasting in its mirth. No life that's joyful can be strong enough to smother My sorrow for what might have been a hippopotamother. |
Let me not to the marriage of true minds (Sonnet CXVI) -- William Shakespeare
(Poem #246)Let me not to the marriage of true minds (Sonnet CXVI)
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
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