Trumpet;
Mouthpiece;
Music stand;
Kerchief for my oily hand;
Cup and straight and harmon mute
(Plus pixie if they want it cute);
Oil (for the valves);
And grease (to help those sticky slides release).
First rehearsal of the year
And everything I need is here!
Raise the bell and let ‘er rip:
Blaaappp!!
Oh, crap.
Forgot my lip.
“We can’t have nice things, and this is why.”
I missed the explanation, but I know
It’s something that I’ve done, or something I
Should want to do but don’t. But even so,
The part that I don’t understand is this:
What makes you think the things we have aren’t nice?
Perhaps our home is not a pond of bliss,
But it’s clean, safe and warm, which should suffice.
If luxuries are what you’re looking for,
I get that. Now and then it’s nice to splurge
On something that meets all your needs and more,
And there’s a rush from following that urge.
I understand, but don’t know what to do.
I can’t conceive of wanting more than you.
The air is cool, the scent is sweet
There’s water on the lawn and street
Unsalted tears for summer’s end…
(All right, it’s rain, but let’s pretend)
I’m not supposed to say, I know,
How this is done, but even so
I think a hint is fair, so I’m
Just gonna whisper: make it rhyme
August
Twenty-seventh:
Both month and date are perfect cubes
There are three
Similar dates in January
But I don’t think they count because all three rely on the fact that one cubed equals one which to me is a cheat
Pansies are the perfect pet.
They rarely make the carpet wet
And if they ask to go outside
They’re happy there until they’ve died.
Park a pansy by the pool
It waits until you’re home from school
And if you have a game that day
It doesn’t pout while you’re away.
Pansies, too, are seldom picky.
Wet food makes their stamens sticky;
Water’s all they really crave.
Just think of all the cash you’ll save!
Practicing your slide trombone?
With Pansy there you’re not alone.
Mortal Kombat days on end?
The pansy’s cool, and still your friend.
Put your pansy in the sun
And look at it. All day. What fun!
Read your pansy’s horoscope
Out loud to it (it gives it hope).
Cats and dogs and even ferrets
Next to pansies can’t compare. It’s
Pansies here (holds hand up high)
And all the rest (chops lower thigh).
Don’t like pansies? That’s all right.
I’ve no dog-flower in this fight.
You can choose a loser, long
As you can live with being wrong.
Pansy, pansy, pretty plant,
I’d quit you, but you know I can’t.
Stigma, style, ovary:
Sex for you means Love for me.
Pizza, whether cold or hot,
Is tasty, but a pansy pot
Is so darn sweet it’s nearly creepy!
Got to go now. Pansy’s sleepy.
The ants live in my laptop, which I hardly have to say
Is balanced on my lap (on top) ’cause that’s the only way
That I can reach the keyboard comfortably, which I’m not
Because the ants get agitated when their laptop home gets hot.
It’s ultimately all my fault: I thought it said Insert.
Read carefully the keys you press, or someone could get hurt.
Bears have bikes but rarely ride them.
Geese freeze bumblebees inside them.
Rattlesnakes can type, but won’t.
Do you get animals? I don’t.
Listening to running water
While you’re resting really oughter
Make you sleep more comfortably.
How come instead it makes you pee?
It’s obvious: The more you know,
The better chance you’re right, although
Psychologists at Yale have shown
That what you really should have known–
And do, on neutral topics–skews
Dramatically based on your views
About the politics involved.
The subjects in their study solved
Math problems showing stats in tables
Where they switched around the labels
So the same results might show
One person Yes, another No.
Participants were tested, too,
For numeracy–how well you
Intuit math concepts and such–
To get a baseline of how much
Each person should have understood
About each chart. Still with me? Good.
Since Yale’s a big northeastern school,
Americans made up the pool
Of subjects, who were interviewed
To find the folks who clearly hewed
Most strongly to the left or right
Politically. They found, despite
Predictably correct (and in-)
Conclusions from the data when
The labels mentioned neutral stuff
(Are skin rash creams benign enough?)
And whether what was bad got worse
With use or non-use (they’d reverse
The labels on the stats as well),
The subjects’ math skills went to hell
When told the data represented
Something that their foes resented.
E.g., if it first appeared
The stats supported what they’d feared
Had always been the case, they’d say,
“I knew it! There’s the proof! Hooray!”
The numbers, though, were chosen so
What looked like Yes meant, really, No,
But only those who really studied
Closely saw the maths were muddied
By irrelevancies, and
Dug deep enough to understand
That no, that No was really Yes.
But here’s the thing: We pay much less
Attention to a stat that seems
To validate our hopes and dreams,
So when the study subjects saw
A stat that didn’t rub them raw
Politically, like Gun control
Makes crime go up (or down), the role
Their numeracy used to play
In parsing data went away!
Most fascinating, those who’d scored
The highest on the math-chops board
Did really, really well as long
As their first glance said they were wrong
About a deeply-held belief,
In which case proof was sweet relief,
But if that glance had ratified
A core belief, then, satisfied,
They’d stop before they’d really looked
And never knew that they’d been rooked.
The more you know, the more it’s hard
For math to show you should discard
As folly all your faith-based “facts.”
Unless you knew that. Then, relax.
TrollPants 2.0 