How I Got Rich
How I Got Rich and What Happened Then
I used to eat my lunch with groups
of businessman from Campbell's Soups.
We drank a drink at lunch each day
Of Coca-Cola mixed with hay
And talked of pending corporate plans
And willow-haired orangutans.
I spent a lot of time this way
At doing things that were not play.
But while I was away at work
My wife went just a bit berserk.
So I gave my wife a giant tome
To keep her company at home.
I simply, clearly just was not –
That is to say – at home a lot.
Though fun we had when I was there
Tossing cookies in the air
Or watching Dodgers playing Sox
On multi-colored faceless clocks.
We did these things so much, you see
Because we were so rich were we.
I made my money selling stuff
Like pitted prunes and candied snuff.
I planted seeds from seedless grapes
And sold the sprouts as seafood crepes.
I sold some coffee in a cup
And leased a fork to drink it up.
I sold a man a pair of lamps
With perforated ceiling clamps.
I bought exotic types of booze
And sold it all to polish shoes.
I grew some trees from stale eggs
Which fruited beer in gallon kegs.
I bought a candle and some wax;
I spun them into purple flax;
Then wrote it off as income tax
And stole my lawyer's Cracker Jacks!
I plucked the feathers from a fish
And sold the rest as lic-or-ish.
I sold them all in Topenish
To a man named Cavendish.
He ate it with a real flair,
A certain regal, haughty air.
I made bold plans to tyrannize
A northern Spanish enterprise
In grapefruit-palms and dates and figs
And maladjusted corkscrew pigs.
(Alas it failed, sad say,
But I got them anyway.)
And when I died, I died in style
Laughing smugly all the while
They put my coffin in its crypt
And read some Damoclean script.
I went away at last to see
The Gates of Heaven welcome me.
God was there, beside the Gate.
He said I was a little late.
I bowed my head, apologized,
Wondered if he realized
The angels were all out on strike;
I couldn't drive; I had to hike.
Then a soul ran right past me
As though he simply couldn't see.
Then another did the same
And thousands more - a horde - they came!
They pushed me rudely to the side
And God told me that I had lied.
Well, okay, I hadn't hiked.
I thought that slow, and so I biked.
As from his Book of Rules He read,
“Tsk tsk-tsk tsk-tsk tsk,” God said.
So PICKED up I my bags and left
For that damnéd lower cleft.
Copyright © John Mudge | Year Posted 2015
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