It warbled like Caruso;

A neighbor swung a baseball bat—

Now Thomas doesn’t do so.

* * *

The Mystery of Mankind

On Christmas we noticed a lot of you angling around with your tongue hanging out,

And tearfully beseeching everybody to point your ears toward a place where they sell licker

Made out of barbed wire and red ink, with a touch of rat poison thrown in to take the curse off,

And you were willing to divorce yourselves from a complete set of a dozen dollars

For the privilege of assaulting your stomach with a bottle of it.