Stanzas Written on the Road Between Pisa and Florence

By the Immoral Bard. 

July 10, 16 2002

 

Inspir’d today, I’m moved to lift my pen.

I must create!  And so I shall commence.

I cast about, but see no citizen

To lend me a receptacle to catch

The inspiration pure from Providence;

And in my pockets, all I find to scratch

        My wits onto’s an advert-envelope.

        I’ll use it, I say, but there’s little hope

 

Of finding on the freeway shoulder here

‘Mid Vespas and Toyotas that ascend

This sunny hillock, anything, I fear,

Resembling a hard, smooth surface, that

I could, in my creative fervor, bend

To purposes of writing.  Something flat

        And tabloid.  Something borrowed, something leant-

        Upon would do—or purchased.  I’d pay rent!—

 

But lackaday! or rather, lackawit!

It’s fond to ask for desks where no desks are. 

So now I have a choice of roughing it—

(Which I would gladly do on days more temperate)—

Or giving up.

                        I kneel down on the tar. . . .

Yowtch!  Lord, my knee!  Support it, don’t dismember it!

        MacAdam’s stung me, but I shan’t be burnéd more..

        Resolv’d to play it safe, I stand and see a car

        An inch away.  Thus I forego my learnéd chore.

        My lay is o’er.  Alas, too soon!  Remember, it

        Was stunted by a lack of furniture.