Once upon a Time

Once upon a time,

There was a beautiful shark.

She combed her long, blonde hair,

And it made the halibut bark.

It made the chicken oink,

And the whale to run for Congress.

A man should never obstruct

The course of material progress.

Yet a lamb cannot but weep

When the kiddies come home from college.

For they have forgotten to keep

The agreement they made to acknowledge

The woodpecker’s right to peck,

And the maple’s to be pecked at.

Let’s have a little respect

For Rubber Duck with a doctorate.  

That provocative way of standing!

All elbows and bangles

And hips just like a coat hanger

And ankles at right angles! I like

The shape of the pouring soy milk,

The sound of the splitting log.

But Egret finds it regrettable that her

Sister is dating a dog.

Don’t listen to ’em, kid!

And don’t listen to their questions.

This corporation’s been ruined by

Well-meaning false confessions.

And the world is fast a-melting,

Though I would have it slow.

And I don’t think it’s helping:

The way these animals go

Straight from hatchery to quackery,

And, if only to amuse,

I’ll throw my hat in with Mike Thataway in

Black patent leather shoes.

Maybe I’m just like my mother.

She’s never satisfied.

Maybe I’m just like my father:

Always a bridesmaid, never a bride.

Maybe I’m just like my cat:

Licking invisible balls.

Perhaps you’ll reflect upon that,

Next time you’re screening your calls.

And all the solvent and the solute,

They were walking hand in hand.

This the Indian poets were the

First to understand.

The ancient Indian poets

Had their heads screwed on straight.

Fixed on the body’s affluence

And the effluents that escape.

And the influence they enjoyed?

Close-focus hocus-pocus.

And every gezunte moyd

In a juvenile honey locust

Will prefer their Hindi distichs

To the Indiana Hoosiers.

We’re gonna be there from Spit Christmas

All the way to Mucus New Year’s.

But for now I draw the curtain

And settle into Lent.

Last person to go to Harvard

Without knowing what that meant.