Toylit: Calvin Trillin Style [Week's News Poem, January 18, 2013]

Friday, January 18, 2013

Calvin Trillin Style [Week's News Poem by Khakjaan Wessington, January 18, 2013]

This week's iambic news must rhyme the trite

With facts and names that fade when out of sight.

Did you hear about the trillion dollar mint?

An after dinner platinum coin we print

To bribe the sober headache aftermath

Of spendthrift ways; the pain of laughter's wrath.

Oh Calvin, any kid can write like you;

So why do you when verse's jobs are few?

Perhaps that's why the choppers never strafe

The people in your poems, why they're safe

Ensconced in paper sheafs inside your mind

Despite the desert heat, jihadikind.

I know your silly sort:

Quick to retort—

Both rapid

And vapid.

Well maybe we can talk about the guns

That don't work as Shel Silverstein-style puns?

I hear that Congress wants control.

A stack of parchment shall patrol

The empty depths of human wit,

Because the poets cannot fill it.

ps: HAPPY BIRTHDAY TOYLIT!