I'm a Poet and Don't Realize It!

Here is a poem I wrote at age 23 called (appropriately enough) "The Ingenue":

I want a closed-casket wedding and a shotgun funeral;
I'm eternally mortal and obscenely ethereal;
I possess a godlike beauty, if you know what I mean...
(You have to take it on faith because it can't be seen.)
Call me Muffy or Buffy or some other fluffy name.
I was doing my laundry when my 15 minutes of fame
Finally came, and Opportunity knocked on my door,
But I was buying generals at the general store.
I always drink my Dixie from a Dixie cup.
Would the real Dionysius please stand up?
The beatniks won't snap for me because my poems rhyme.
I gave five bucks to Greenpeace one time,
Now I've got every charity asking me for ten;
They figure, if I did it once, I'll do it again
(Just like men). My faux pas turned out to be fake,
But taking things for granted is a big mistake,
Like that ace skydiver who forgot his parachute.
(The point on my #2 pencil is moot.)
I'm Proclaudianus and antifessional,
And I have to admit my feelings never were chemical
Or mutual; the future will soon be the past.
Setting off explosives is always a blast -
While they last - and the thoughts of a puddle aren't deep.
I get my best ideas in other people's sleep.
I was once first-chair chicken in a rubber band.
If I'm dying of ennui, do I get a trip to Disneyland?
But on the other hand, I wore a benzene ring.
You can get the cherry bombs in maraschino or bing,
And that's why I dot my i's with a question mark.
Did Corelli's friends call him Angie or Arc?
I dig hidden treasure, man, it's outta sight!
I'm tone-blind and color-deaf so I sing in black and white.
The corner laundromat suggests you use apartheid -
Keeps whites and colors separate until they're all dried -
Well, I tried to decipher your zip-coded plan,
But there's no place for a dame like the Isle of Man!
They pay minimum wage down at the local eggplant.
Could Hieronymus Bosch get an NEA grant?
Yeah, I've seen it all, and I wasn't impressed
(Or even stamped) with a pope's or a cardinal's crest.
They offered me a joint before the firing squad.
I'd rather wear a fig leaf than a piece of cod,
Or a coat of mail, even if it's nothing but bills.
I'm in my uncles' won'ts but not in their wills.
My fridge is electronic but my TV is quarky.
Rule by margarine is called oligarchy.
I quit divinity school, because, you see,
It's just too damned much work to be a divinity,
But the counterfeiter told me there was money to be made.
How did you guess my favorite gemstone is jade?

Copyright 1995 by the author