Firing the Fireman
The fireman was fired today.
The barber’s now on severance pay.
Crestfallen are the lumberjacks
Since their employment got the axe.
The cobbler got the boot; what’s more,
The carpenter was shown the door.
And I’ve just learned, with some alarm,
Of lay-offs at the poultry farm.
The sailor got the old heave-ho;
The trapeze artist was let go.
The burlap weaver won’t be back
Now that he too has got the sack.
Redundant is the copyist.
The beauty pageant queen? Dismissed.
Designers of her lingerie
Were given their pink slips today.
Discharged, the local electrician
Currently seeks a new position.
The notary was disinclined
To take a pay cut, so resigned.
The cannery is closing and
The workers there have all been canned.
And given this, I’m not surprised
The dietician’s been downsized.
In English there is no vocation
Sans a term for termination,
So when the recession looms
The only worker, one assumes,
The threat of job loss won’t deter:
The humble lexicographer!
Ichthyopoesis
Burbot, turbot, arctic char
Walleye, kahawai, longnose gar
Stickleback, yellow jack, smallmouth bass
Foxface, riffle dace, chiseltooth wrasse
Alewife, ghost knife, Falkland sprat
Stingray, lamprey, spotband scat
Come conger eels and amberjacks,
Come sturgeons, soles, and ciscoes!
Let’s ichthyopoetic wax
Of aquafauna piscose:
Sawfish, squawfish, rainbow trout
John Dory, dwarf saury, limp eelpout
Livebearer, green terror, Black Sea roach
Threadsail, scissortail, candystripe loach
Mbuna, bullet tuna, sailfin queen
Tenpounder, starry flounder, surf sardine
Come conger eels and amberjacks,
Come sturgeons, soles, and ciscoes!
Let’s ichthyopoetic wax
Of aquafauna piscose!
Tristan Miller (http://www.nothingisreal.com) is a computer scientist,
ferret herder, and logologist. His hobbies include regicide, collecting
those little tiny hangers that come with new pairs of socks, and writing
brief but patently false autobiographies. His articles on wordplay and
mathematical humor have appeared in Word Ways: The Journal of Recreational
Linguistics, Babel: The Language Magazine, and The Annals of Improbable
Research.