assesofparnassus

[assesofparnassus]

A Litany of Towns

(for having lived, for a time, in Brittany)

Crozon’s a dowager with two left feet; Morgat the loose sister who knows and tells all. Brest’s blue ramparts have known defeat - Even its cap-stones learned to crawl!

La Fret’s special island has only a view; Le Fouet’s bon marche sells neither souls nor chattel. Locranon’s incense is shot with rue, While Landevennec reeks of slow cattle.

Dournanez’s sardines drowned overnight. Lorient’s defenders once bled. Plomodiern seems to be doing all right; Lostmarc’h is very likely stone-dead.

Rennes issues fiats as if it might lose A voice that’s used to shouting; Quimper oversells its medieval news; Beauteous Penhir is pouting.

Innumerable entities can’t all be crowned With laurels whose withering’s assured. Where there’s wealth, injustice abounds While a clutch of syllables has endured.

--Brett Busang

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Two Griefs Compared

Little Lucy cried and cried all day the day her turtle died; but, odd enough, she never cried when her mother died by suicide. An observation to discuss: Some losses sting; some concuss.

--Aaron Nydegger

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Discretion Advised

Sad fact:

You can be smacked, attacked, cracked, tracked, wracked, hacked, and whacked.

Use tact.

--David D. Horowitz

[assesofparnassus]

Home Schooling

Smart kids with siblings learn how evil works. We love to learn. It makes us little jerks.

--Alfred Nicol

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Moneykind

That kind of money is swishy and flashy. That kind of money’s a bore, I find; That kind of money is fishy and splashy. That kind of money is not my kind.

My kind of money is somewhat quieter. My kind of money won’t hog the stage. My kind of money’s a long-term dieter: My kind of money is slim for its age.

That kind of money is horribly tethering. That kind of money one’s better without. My kind of money’s enough for anything. (Anything more I’ve forgotten about.)  

--Ruth S. Baker

[assesofparnassus]

Computer Science

They have a new motto in Comp. Sci. They pasted it up on the wall: "Artificial intelligence, It's better than nothing at all."

--Bruce McGuffin

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Hieronymus Bosch Had desires he couldn’t quash That kept him up nights Painting The Garden of Earthly Delights.

--Jay Rogoff

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Unhappy Medium

Dull prose and grammatical terrors, Misspellings, quotations with errors-- Deliver us all from the tedium Engendered by essays on Medium.

--Steven Kent

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The Argument by Design

We look at sailboats, and of course we think: "These have a maker!" But they also sink.

--Robert Donohue

[assesofparnassus]

Lunch Scene

Eine Kleine Dingy diner. Lunch is served On mismatched china. Unobserved Boys coyly eyeing a Proud-browed waitress Sigh, recline. A Girl whose eyes outshade their liner… For what finer Mate or maîtresse Could one pine? "Ah, Were she mine." "Ha!"

--Fergus Cullen

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Minority Report

When it surveys Ms Taylor Swift’s Ecstatic swarms of fervent fandom The mind recalls, despite her gifts, A tag that ends with "disputandum."

--Jerome Betts

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smalti

ancient pixels’ fragile glass

contradicting “all things pass”

--Julie Steiner

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Zealot's Lament

The sacred texts on which I focused brought nothing but a plague of locusts.

--Damian Balassone

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FYI/FYE

It works for me, a simple game Involving little strategy. If I should need a claim to fame, It works for me.

When someone else is bound to be An ass without the sense of shame, I count each braying—one, two, three!

I recommend you do the same When you must mingle socially: Let keeping score become your aim. It works for me.

--Jane Blanchard

[assesofparnassus]

Deviser

Whiny factions divide us Into tiny fractions.

--David D. Horowitz

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But The Alternative …

My bladder wrecks my slumber; I cannot find my key; If Age is just a number, It’s done itself on me.

--Ruth S. Baker

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The Chair

She'd toss her clothes across a chair; Her stuff was scattered everywhere. And then one day she wasn't there.

--Steven Kent