(The Alpha Poems)
by Klaus J. Gerken (2003)
http://users.synapse.net/kgerken/HIGHWAYS.txt
A1
A brilliant man once said:
“Alphabet soup is just a piece of cake.”
Now no one knew what it meant, of course,
but it made Groucho Marx cry,
and somehow Mario Lanza was never the same
after they lauded Caruso the greater tenor.
After all, he didn’t slug it out in Night at the Opera
but did die of pleurisy in excruciating pain
needing one more dose of Carnegie Hall,
and all those who shook their jewelry
and brushed the lint from their tuxedos
in a mass of solidarity never knowing
what was sung of what it’s all about.
Of course the unions knew…and those who laughed
riotously at Groucho and gang knew all along
but no one dared to say it for it was too silly,
pretty, and downright irreligious:
“Alphabet soup is just a piece of cake.”
And wouldn’t you know it, of all the letters
there never was an A.
28 July 2003