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Title: The First Person Singular
Author: Edmund Vance Cooke [
More Titles by Cooke]
McUmphrey's a fellow who's lengthy on lungs.
Backed up by the smoothest of ball-bearing tongues,
And his topic--himself--is worth talking about,
But he works it so much he has frazzled it out.
He never will give me my half of a chance
To chip in my own little, clever romance
In the first person singular. Yes, and they say,
He offended you, too, in a similar way.
Cousin Maud tells her illnesses, ancient and recent,
In a most minute way which is almost indecent!
Vivisecting herself, with some medical chatter,
She serves us her portions--as if on a platter,
Never noting how I am but waiting to stir
My dregs of diseases to offer to her.
And I hear (such a joke!) that your chronic gastritis
Stands silent forever before her nephritis.
Mrs. Henderson's Annie goes out every night,
And Bertha, before her, was simply a fright,
While Agnes broke more than the worth of her head,
And Maggie--well, some things are better unsaid.
Such manners to talk of her help--when she knows
My wife's simply aching to tell of our woes!
And I hear that she never lets you get a start
On your story of Rosy we all know by heart.
You'd hardly believe that I've heard Bunson tell
The Flea-Powder Frenchman and Razors to Sell,
The One-Legged Goose and that old What You Please--
And even, I swear it, The Crow and the Cheese.
And he sprang that old yarn of He Said 't was His Leg,
When you wanted to tell him Columbus's Egg,
While I wanted to tell my own whimsical tale
(Which I recently wrote) of The Man in the Whale!
[The end]
Edmund Vance Cooke's poem: First Person Singular
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