Tuesday, April 05, 2011

He said it!

I love Ogden Nash, and he is a giver of very good advice.

A Word to Husbands by Ogden Nash


To keep your marriage brimming

With love in the loving cup,

Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;

Whenever you’re right, shut up.

To A Small Boy Standing On My Shoes While I Am Wearing Them by Ogden Nash


Let's straighten this out, my little man,

And reach an agreement if we can.

I entered your door as an honored guest.

My shoes are shined and my trousers are pressed,

And I won't stretch out and read you the funnies

And I won't pretend that we're Easter bunnies.

If you must get somebody down on the floor,

What in the hell are your parents for?

I do not like the things that you say

And I hate the games that you want to play.

No matter how frightfully hard you try,

We've little in common, you and I.

The interest I take in my neighbor's nursery

Would have to grow, to be even cursory,

And I would that performing sons and nephews

Were carted away with the daily refuse,

And I hold that frolicsome daughters and nieces

Are ample excuse for breaking leases.

You may take a sock at your daddy's tummy

Or climb all over your doting mummy,

But keep your attentions to me in check,

Or, sonny boy, I will wring your neck.

A happier man today I'd be

Had someone wrung it ahead of me.

4 comments:

quilly said...

I do like Ogden Nash.

I am posting a poem every day for NPM, too -- only I am writing my own. I'm glad someone is posting the real stuff!

Anonymous said...

made me think of you....
Lounder Than A Bomb

Logophile said...

Quilly, get on with your badass poetry-writing self! I'm impressed.

Coop, I want to see THAT MOVIE!! I hadn't heard of it, thanks for the nudge.

lime said...

when did ogden nash meet my father (in the second poem not the first)?