Ode To J. K. Rowling

J. K. Rowling
You have the world at your knees!
(Too bad those god-awful Harry Potter books
Make me do nothing but sneeze...)

Some light froth:

How do you hoist a Poetaster
By his own petard?
Simple -
Just rhyme "Hunks of Abalone"
With "Heloise and Abelard"!!

Ode to Gore Vidal

The Simplon Orient Express
Was an eventful ride
We kids laughed at the overweight adults
Our comments undisguisedly snide ...

We'd intended to go to Gstaad!
To bask in Greta Garbo's aura
But Mother got lost somewhere in the Paris Metro
We ended up in Venice ...

Then a boring summer on Capri ..
Strolling at night in the Emperor's Villa
Something makes you keep looking up as if to see
Beauteous glowing orbs
Arriving from some place like Neptune ...

And on to Rome
Our new Home!

Quick Change of Scene:
Benedict Canyon Drive, Los Angeles, twenty years later
(Twinkle twinkle little star!
The Polo Lounge was our neighborhood bar!)
And there in the kitchen
My stupid mother
After kvetching on and on about becoming a "grass widow"
Hearing me ask "Did you ever know Gore Vidal?"
(He's got some idiotic house on the mainland opposite Capri
So he can ride the bus and pick-up snotty Italian teenagers)
Says

"I always meant to go say hello to Gore
But I never got around to it."

The Dont Ask Dont Tell Overture

Of Scylla vom und zu Karybdis





I shot an arrow
Into the air
And where it lands . . .

. . .



I was told not to care

Ode to McLuhan

The medium is the message
Or so McLuhan said
(Oh, waiter - I'll take that steak medium-well
And don't you DARE skimp on the bread!)
But what really matters most here
What's really disgusting
(MY GOD! - THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
IS CALLING MY CELLPHONE!!!)
Is ...

Sound-bites and fury
Signifying nothing

As Aeolian Harps

As Aeolian harps
On yon pavilion play
And skateboarders careen
Their cotillions where they may
Let all men give condolence
On the hills and by the bay

As Aeolian harps
On yon pavilion play
And skateboarders careen
Their cotillions where they may
Let all men give condolence
Wherever the homeless lay
. . .

V for Vom!

When "dot-dot-dot-dash"
Became deprecated for "dot-com"
Beethoven rolled over ...
...
And a Baroness added the "Vom"!