My Rhymes

I dug a hole in the sky

And called it the moon

To get away from flying festoons,

And customer service reps

With headset microphones

Telling me “Ma’am we know about loans,

We know about debt,

And we know about you,

We know all your tricks,

And your costumes and hats,

Your act trying to balance 92 penny caps

On top of your head,

Don’t you look quite foolish?

Your face looks quite green

And your lips look quite blueish.”

The hole is the moon

And the moon is a whole

If I didn’t know moon

I’d go way down low,

All the way to the bottom,

Where fever grass grows,

Hippopotamus sinks

Down to river bed,

I’d much like to be a giraffe instead,

The giraffe inside me

Infinitesimally small,

Left only traces — the mere form of tall.

If I became rich (sold all 92 caps)

I would book a tour

Spreading the gospel of rats.

The giraffe in the tree

Would be a bit larger,

And aged sycamore, tip-top mulberry.

If I became rich I would hire the jester

To bring me the moon

On a silver chain necklace.

And the jester could do it

Where science has failed

Where the best mathematicians have flailed

In salty waters — you can’t have the moon!

The tide pulls them in

And they wash up ashore

A beached mathematician — never seen before!

I’ll take my sand shovel

And hack at the sky

Till the blue chips away.

And Bishops and babies

The rebels and I

Will all stop to marvel

At my hole in the sky.

I call it the moon!

The court jester found it,

Here, I dug it round,

And over there oval,

I’m filling it in - construction, removal.

If I see the moon first,

I win a prize

So I dug for the moon

And then acted surprised

When I found the whole

Carved firmly in sky.

I shone a light down,

Lit a candle and smoked,

Out my window the moon,

“Hello Flying Festoons!”

I will call from my perch,

“You know nothing of moons!”

You who stick in the lurch,

You who beach mathematicians

Halfway to sea,

Incessant panderance,

Like the marching of ants

Sweaty palms of the hands

Who just keep on shaking,

Who know nothing of halves.

I know moons, many moons

And of mothers and calves,

I try to know nothing of NFL drafts.

My moon is whole, and prophetically so,

Because I can dig to the bottom of whole.

Have you ever seen moon worms?

Like their earth kin they like rain,

And cracks in the sidewalk,

And when the moon wanes,

I fill in the hole,

And sprinkle in Earth

To plant a small garden

In my hole (in the moon)

When it’s all filled in,

I will call it new,

The absence of moon in a vastness of blue.

I will not write at all the next day,

I will be dutifully chipping away,

And when I hit moon

I will call you to say,

“You’ll never believe what I found in my hole!

I call it the moon!

I just found it, today!”