Donkey Masquerade
It started in Egypt, and spread over
the whole of our territorial asylum,
staggering under the burden. We hope
it may be confined where it is, worn
by the gentleman whom it now adorns.
Yea, verily, it is not good that man
should be alone. His debilitated form,
nervous, grasping, takes pleasure in
companions to spin, to milk and churn,
to bake the pork and beans "as they
should be baked." What a crop to the
acre that would be, his home a hell
on earth, where time is fast dissipating
a good old wife caught in the cracks.
Saint Valentine’s Day
A curious notion prevails in some
quarters. One man loses a limb, another
his life, to be your Valentine, and I
a maid at the window, amid the almost
universal darkness, beginning to burn
with a feeble flame. He would doubtless
have made a good lover, sighing like
a furnace. He was brained, however, by
monks wrapped in white satin ribbon,
and it will cost him true lover's knots
complete with silk stockings and garters.
The poor fellow goes about firing off
verses twined with perennial greenness,
a present to the one who fell to his lot.
Another Plate of Pudding
George has a cozy place, with velvets,
silks and woolens all the rage in Paris.
We hear of a country schoolmistress who
raided the camp, attracted by promises
of rich discoveries, then sorted them in
a trunk safe beyond dispute. She teaches
how to scoot, said a philosopher, sure
to get brooches that are almost too large,
and a nice, stylish pony phantom, just
the thing for rain when it begins to patter.
He assumes the role of good behavior,
likely to prove a boomerang beyond the
reach of hope, and now Griswold dines
and wines with the driest spot on earth.
Stephen Kagarise 