The Second One

FLOTATION DEVICE

I'm swimming in the gene pool
thinkin' 'bout the Laps
pondering Northern Europeans
Japanese are on my maps

I'm considering the Hutu
the Bantu and the Greeks
I wonder 'bout Italians
and the famous Saudi sheiks

In the deep end of the gene pool
Canadians reside
with Australian Aboriginals
standing at their side

Mongolians are splashing-
keep it up and get kicked out
the Inca aren't offended
it makes Yanomamo pout

Now I'm floating in the gene pool
just lying on my back
wondering if some folks are special
and if there's anything I lack.
--Mark Trail



IN MEMORY OF EMILY DICKINSON
I like Death because it’s Romantic.
I like Death because it’s Dramatic.
I like Death. There’s lots that’s unsaid yet.
I like Death because I’m not Dead yet.
--LJC



Since this blog was inspired by Franklin Pierce Adams (hereinafter “FPA”), I thought a quick story might be appropriate.

At a party one night, Adams found himself in the host’s study with Alexander Woolcott. Woolcott, spotting one his own books on the shelf, carefully retrieved it and flipped to the printing information. “Ah,” he sighed, “what is so rare as a Woolcott first edition?”

“A Woolcott second edition,” FPA replied.



Franz Kafka walks into a bar. He orders a dry martini. The bartender asks, “Do you want that with an olive or a twist?” And Kafka replies, “I choose despair.”



As long as I’m bringing up FPA, I thought I might reprint his most famous poem:

Baseball’s Sad Lexicon

These are the saddest of possible words:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double-
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
"Tinker to Evers to Chance."



FPA allegedly coined the word “gonfalon,” which Merriam Webster’s Collegiate (11th Edition) defines as “1. the ensign of certain princes or states (as the medieval republics of Italy) 2: a flag that hangs from a crosspiece or frame.” Since the word itself goes back to 1595, I’m guessing that he really pioneered it use as an adjective.

Which all brings us to the timeless question, “Earl? Where can I get me one of them gonfalon bubbles?”


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Tao on Five Dollars a Day
(in tribute to 95% of the poems I've read in The New Yorker)

In the spotted moonlight
I bend aghast
To reach the loathsome branch
To beat the rustic squirrel.
He is dusty
And I am large.

I meditate on sinful death
Whose spherical presence,
In contrast to my own,
Attends the woeful gnat
Who is stuck on some bark.

I bleat at Nature.
Nature bleats back.
We end the inning
Four to one.

Impecunious night
Gives way to the bulging dawn.
I look down
And my hand is on fire.
--LJC