More About People

Edgar Degas

Bad Mood

More About People

When people aren't asking questions

They're making suggestions

And when they're not doing one of those

They're either looking over your shoulder or stepping on your toes

And then as if that weren't enough to annoy you

They employ you.

Anybody at leisure

Incurs everybody's displeasure.

It seems to be very irking

To people at work to see other people not working,

So they tell you that work is wonderful medicine,

Just look at Firestone and Ford and Edison,

And they lecture you till they're out of breath or something

And then if you don't succumb they starve you to death or something.

All of which results in a nasty quirk:

That if you don't want to work you have to work to earn enough money
so that you won't have to work.

~ Ogden Nash ~

A Word to Husbands

Pablo Picasso

Les Demoiselles de Avignon

A Word to Husbands

To keep your marriage brimming

With love in the loving cup,

Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;

Whenever you’re right, shut up.

~ Ogden Nash ~

Pretty Halcyon Days

Edgar Degas

At The Beach

Pretty Halcyon Days

How pleasant to sit on the beach,

On the beach, on the sand, in the sun,

With ocean galore within reach,

And nothing at all to be done!

No letters to answer,

No bills to be burned,

No work to be shirked,

No cash to be earned,

It is pleasant to sit on the beach

With nothing at all to be done!

How pleasant to look at the ocean,

Democratic and damp; indiscriminate;

It fills me with noble emotion

To think I am able to swim in it.

To lave in the wave,

Majestic and chilly,

Tomorrow I crave;

But today it is silly.

It is pleasant to look at the ocean;

Tomorrow, perhaps, I shall swim in it.

How pleasant to gaze at the sailors.

As their sailboats they manfully sail

With the vigor of Vikings and whalers

In the days of the Vikings and whale.

They sport on the brink

Of the shad and the shark;

If its windy they sink;

If it isn't, they park.

It is pleasant to gaze at the sailors,

To gaze without having to sail.

How pleasant the salt anesthetic

Of the air and the sand and the sun;

Leave the earth to the strong and athletic,

And the sea to adventure upon.

But the sun and the sand

No contractor can copy;

We lie in the land

Of the lotus and poppy;

We vegetate, calm and aesthetic,

On the beach, on the sand, in the sun.

~ Ogden Nash ~