I like to keep a kind of "commonplace book" - only instead of writing the things I discover in a book with blank pages (which I used to do), I now copy items into a file in my compuker called "Quotable Quotes." I recently rediscovered this excellent pome, in a pile of pieces of paper destined to be so transcribed. Figgered fellow wordies might enjoy it....I found it posted on the Lonely Planet's discussion board, the Thorn Tree, by someone called "lady fuschia" - in response to a discussion about worst-latrine experiences while travelling - 'tis very clever, methinks:
a pal o’ mine, who is not me,
has spectacles required to see.
while at a bus-trip toilet stop
in india, he sadly dropped
them down the pit. it was not clean
(not flushable, see what i mean?)
but he’d no choice - he had to sink
his arm in that atrocious stink
to find the glasses. what a drama!
and what a diahorreahrama!
he searched till he was shoulder-deep
then - praise the lord!, hear jesus weep! -
his fingers wrapped around the glasses
soaked in soil from others’ asses.
he pulled them out, but - oh to think! -
there was no water in the sink,
the bus was leaving, what to do?
both arm and glasses caked in poo!
so, thus encrusted, he returned
and took his seat, and thus was spurned
by fellow travellers, faeces-leary:
his view that day was somewhat smeary.
