PREVIOUS NEXT FIRST Poems 4 The Funeral, A squint in a flash of Sun, TACK ATTACK, Standing in the way of harm, MULE-FOOLS, Less horse than ass, "What sees't thou out there?"...
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Poems 4 The Funeral.
Manet's Le Bar Aux Folies-Bergere
a

A squint in a flash of Sun
interpreted a wink
brought out an angry gun
& raised a stink

Three corpses were counted down:
--2 men, 1 dog--
(an old lady was hit with a log
--but it was just some clown)

Paul Klee's Embrace
b

TACK ATTACK

Standing in the way of harm
a Tack kept watch

(available to any toe)

to see (without any alarm)
what it could catch

Wouldn't you know...

Along a (big ole) Thumb
came, without tact,
and got stuck dumb
'fore it could act
intelligently...

Ouch! then jumped a hill
and fell into a hole (earful)

Had it gone any other way at all
tack'd be there still

Daumier's Don Quixote & The Dead Mule
c

MULE-FOOLS

Less horse than ass,
two mules upon a trip

outside the farmer's clear consent
went (trying to look quite hip
in their adventurous experiment)

when they were spotted by a cop:

"Quickly," one mule said to the other:
"Brother, tell him you're an antelope.
I'll tell him I'm your mother." And

they would have got away with it,
too, had not the mule that spoke
laughed like a dope...
done in by his wit

The only thing that escaped the cop
was the joke.

d

"What sees't thou out there?"
King Priam asked the first look-out,
who answered him (erroneously
as it later turned out): "Sire,
there's nothing out there
but this really big ass."

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