it's a city full of animals, a city full of thieves
a city full of lovers trying hard to make believe


Alex Goldschmidt, Man and His Paper, 2009

Bargain Hunt
-- Ron Padgett

for Tessie

Suppose you found a bargain so incredible
you stood there stunned for a moment
unable to believe that this thing could be
for sale at such a low price: that is what happens
when you are born, and as the years go by
the price goes up and up until, near the end
of your life, it is so high that you lie there
stunned forever.


Ah, Humanity
-- Klipschutz

Throat cancer is not remotely funny,
but the situation is hilarious:

One of Our Finest Actors, also a notable producer
and all around Hollywood Royalty, having long ago
outdistanced any taint of nepotism for being the son
of an actor even more famous than himself,
is living separately from his second wife,

One of Our Finest Actresses, a world class beauty
twenty five years his junior, and their two children,
though it is said he rents near them in Manhattan
and comes over every morning to make pancakes
for the kiddies and their mother.

“Sources say” she cannot forgive his statements
that the cancer he recently fought to a draw
may have been caused by oral sex.

Life itself is a Reality Show. CUT TO COMMERCIAL---—