People made fun when I bought an Echo
they said it couldn’t out run a gecko.
Called it a four cylinder sewing machine
about the size of a large kidney bean.
In 01 when the gas was not as high
a manual stick I opted to buy.
I said gas will go up you wait and see
they jeered and laughed, all poking fun at me.
I pampered it with K & N filter
made sure not a thing went out of kilter.
Added a tornado to air intake
increasing mpg was piece of cake.
With windows rolled down, holding constant speed
forty-seven miles per gallon- indeed.
Copyright © 2011 By Caryl S. Muzzey
I AM DRIVE
Teaching English is the best job under the sun
Students learn some, I learn more
Working with foreigners is hard but fun
Repeating till your tongue gets sore
Native speakers like you ( and me too )
Don’t have to think about tenses of a verb
And irregular adjectives or how to
Pronounce words like “clothes” and such blurb
But these students do.
And if they want to linguistically survive
We must not miss their cue.
The other day a student says to me, “I am drive.”
I figured he meant, “I am driving.” ( present progressive tense )
But for fun I said, “Ok man, but I don’t have a car, so I am walk.”
He caught the joke with better sense
And then he got courage and began to talk -
Which was better than simply being struck dumb
By the present progressive,
Or feeling helpless and numb
And depressive rather than expressive.