The Irony Engine
And other poems
The Forgotten
Menagerie
The African Orangotang
The Orangotang differs
from the Orangutan
Chiefly in its primary
diet
And the fact that it is
misspelled
The Duck-Billed Platitude
No one cared really
When the Duck-Billed
Platitude was wiped out
We were all tired of
hearing the self-important pronouncements.
The Mere Cat
The placard beside the
cage
announced it as a
white-tailed meerkat
But it was obvious:
This was just a calico
With some stripes dyed
in its fur
They could not afford
the real thing
We looked away,
embarrassed
So did the house cat
The Irony Engine
1
He is not a good Eskimo
He dreams of fireplaces
and lets his teeth
chatter
He can stand it no more
There must be a heater,
someplace
But the only one he
finds is the Irony Engine
Nanook warns him
In times like these,
the Irony Engine is
always running hot
He doesn't care
He is not a good Eskimo
And so he turns it on
When they wake, the igloo
has melted around them
2
I don't see the irony
in this
He says to Nanook
Just a ruined igloo
that we can rebuild
He is not a good Eskimo
or student of
literature
But later that day
There is an incongruity
between the actual
result
of a sequence of events
and the normal or
expected result:
Seal-fur spoiled by
splotches of green spray-paint
Suddenly becomes wildly
fashionable
The other Eskimos shake
their heads sadly
And avoid his gaze
3
There are 36 words for
love
but none for cold
don't you think that's
ironic?
He asks Nanook
Nanook shakes his head
sadly
You don't understand
The irony is that you
know the 36 words
But you have not had a
date
Since high school
He holds his mittened
hands
Out to the warmth of
the Engine
4
The crazy thing:
they'd hid the Irony
Engine from him
He'd never gone into
the blubber-curing tent before
He preferred
gardenburgers
He was not a good
Eskimo
He'd found it anyway
behind a pile of walrus
pelts
and whalebones
5
Days later
a ship runs aground on
the ice
A cloud of bats escapes
from one of the cabins
Nanook shrugs:
That was probably
ironic
from someone else's
point of view
6
The ship had a cargo
full of parkas
7
The Irony Engine
sputters
and shakes
It spits out a few lines
of blank verse
and finally grinds to a
halt
He misses its heat
© 1999 Absurd Pamphlet
Press