The Irony Engine

And other poems

 

by Chris McCaleb

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

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