Can things be sharp if things are dull?
Can things be empty if things are full?
Can red be white on blue sunny days bright?
Or darkness be lit if there isn't any light?
Can squares be round when silence has sound?
Or an ounce be weighty when it doesn't make a pound?
Stop scratching your head in wonderment!
This is no time for "yonder tent!"
Here is where we ought to start!
Not back there in Mr. Yawrley's yard!
When are you going to come to your senses!
I know, I know, -- "...when verbs are used in their proper tenses."
OK, all right, have it your way: --
We'll begin again come next Tuesday;
But until then, don't forget what I said:
Your feet ar'n't concordant if they're filled with lead,
Whether or not you go out on a limb
For them, us, her, it, or him.

Werther had a love for Charlotte
     Such as words could never utter;
Would you know how first he met her?
     She was cutting bread and butter.

Charlotte was a married lady,
     And a moral man was Werther,
And, for all the wealth of Indies,
     Would do nothing for to hurt her.

So he sighed and pined and ogled,
     And his passion boiled and bubbled,
Till he blew his silly brains out,
     And no more was by it troubled.

Charlotte, having seen his body
     Borne before her on a shutter,
Like a well-conducted person,
     Went on cutting bread and butter.

nobody loses all the time

i had an uncle named
Sol who was a born failure and
nearly everybody said he should have gone
into vaudeville perhaps because my Uncle Sol could
sing McCann He Was A Diver on Xmas Eve like Hell Itself which
may or may not account for the fact that my Uncle

Sol indulged in that possibly most inexcusable
of all to use a highfalootin phrase
luxuries that is or to
wit farming and be
it needlessly
added

my Uncle Sol’s farm
failed because the chickens
ate the vegetables so
my Uncle Sol had a
chicken farm till the
skunks ate the chickens when

my Uncle Sol
had a skunk farm but
the skunks caught cold and
died and so
my Uncle Sol imitated the
skunks in a subtle manner

or by drowning himself in the watertank
but somebody who’d given my Uncle Sol a Victor
Victrola and records while he lived presented to
him upon the auspicious occasion of his decease a
scruptious not to mention splendiferous funeral with
tall boys in black gloves and flowers and everything and
i remember we all cried like the Missouri
when my Uncle Sol’s coffin lurched because
somebody pressed a button
(and down went
my Uncle
Sol

and started a worm farm)