When Elves Have Picked Your Pockets

When elves have picked your pockets, call the imps,
Who hate elves with a passion deep and dark
Since they were barred from loading up the ark
With magic mushrooms, by the elves and chimps.
They had to transport everything in blimps.
Facing conditions stormy, stern, and stark,
One of their number uttered a remark,
Profane and sharp, about an elf who limps.

Standing with you against the imps, the elves
In their turn call for imps to be restrained:
"Uncivilized, uncouth," elves have maintained,
"The imps will harm your kin, collapse your shelves,
And skew statistics. Pray protect yourselves."
Imps, too, disdain, where they have been disdained.

Our Wayward Thoughts

We won't be marshalling our wayward thoughts
Any time soon: the store won't reimburse
Our purchase price; the rain won't stop; the nurse
Won't use a finer needle; there were shots
Fired in the parking lot; our newest pots
Are ruined now; a minute will reverse
Our best decisions; they were speaking Erse
At your last trial; those aren't sailors' knots.

We'll face the music and the end with pride,
Recalling nothing, dreaming everything,
Enthralled by Minotaurs, intrigued by string.
Insisting on our dignity and tied
To honour, and with honour fortified,
We'll have a small glass of port wine and sing.

Impossible!

"Impossible!" the owl exclaimed. "Not done!
We haven't cleared it with the lawyers, priests,
And government officials, or the beasts
Who warned us they would hammer anyone
That did it." I was sleeping in the sun
When I was woken by the arrivistes
And told to dress up for midsummer feasts
And reckonings. They said they had a gun.

The owl was not unhappy, in the end;
Victuals were good, the bad decisions few,
The weather fine, and underneath the yew
A woman stood, who claimed to be our friend.
A stream will flow, a willow tree will bend,
And nothing is impossible, or new.