Short Tunis Poems

For so long have I contended
And taken you for a mountain 
Only to find you a downhill..


C. O 
(Tunis, 2020)...

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“What’s One?”

Guru of algebra: One is One.
Suffrage agitator: One is vote.
Labour party leader: “Claps” is ONE.
Conservative party leader: ONE is “claps”. 
Egalitarian: One is ANY.
Sociologist: One is many.
Psychiatrist: One is hidden.
Philosopher: One is what.
Brother polygamist: One is a quarter.
Dictator: 1 is I.
Home Office Minister: ONE is who.
Poet: two are halves of one.

						Tunis, March 2010
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There’s no way one’s devoted lover
Won’t one’s weaknesses and faults cover;
Tell big fools that one is in clover:
Who nears not maps Driver of Rover
From Tunis to far-away Dover
And would in helicopters hover,
All to The Glory of Jehovah!

There’s some chance your devoted lover
Could suddenly say “it’s over”
If you’d fertilized an Eve’s Ova
Or stolen a blind beggar’s guava;
The last: A sure subject of scandal;
Fears that, soon, you’d snatch a kid’s sandal....

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