Stat!
Exclaiming Instantaneously!
It took no time at all to see,
Protracted an emergency,
And so we pruned it cap-a-pie.
Driving the Limit
The driver in the car behind
Is so close I can read his lips.
His words to me are so unkind
I have to censor them with blips:
You [blipping] snail! You crawling [blip]!
Although I’m at the posted speed,
He’s champing for a faster clip,
Much faster than an ass should need.
He sounds his horn, and blips and blips,
And gestures, rudely, I should stop.
We both do, and that’s when it slips
That I’m an undercover cop.
The Idea of Order at Key School
pace Wallace Stevens
At Francis Scott Key School we stayed in line,
except for Fred and Matt and Jimmy, who,
oh, yes, and Scott, would make wild serpentine
digressions from the strictly straight and true.
Our school stood inland, but Lake Michigan
gave us the simulacrum of a sea
just eight miles east, and as we skipped and ran
its breezes leapt the playground fence at Key.
You’ll note the harmony between the lake,
the wind, the mischief makers, and the school,
though, isn’t meaningful unless you take
account of Fred and Matt and Jimmy’s rule:
To outdo Scott in rubbing teachers wrong,
and wind up schooldays with a naughty song.