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Among the
earth's most formidable creatures
is one who
bears very similar features
to mine,
though she's thoroughly foreign to me;
I'd claim she
came from another planet --
one named
Venus (or was it Janet?)
but most
would find that hard to believe, don't you agree?
No, her
strangeness stems from simple genetics,
udderish
moods, and dreadful cosmetics,
and
especially from the way she acts towards me:
She seems to
think she's still in charge
even though
I've grown quite large,
but I’m an
adult she's never willing to see!
Instead her
perception, quite mistaken,
regards my
lot as completely forsaken
to be her
slave and general dog's-body;
Her whims are
mad, filled with demands,
and dare I
thwart her slightest commands
her tirades
are something I devoutly wish I could flee...
Yet Mum on
her own seems unable to cope
with life's
least requirement of any scope
so her claim
on me is her ultimate victory:
I do her
chores and smooth her way,
shield her
from stress, check in every day,
and arrange
her life most satisfactorily.
She's
determined to know my whereabouts,
thoroughly
convinced I consort with louts
whose
ancestors have barely come down from a tree,
While she, in
contrast, is quite loudly certain
that our
forebearers lived in caves with lace curtains
and Grandpa
Oog would have certainly been a grandee!
Though she's
searched in vain for news of our reign
it hasn't
inhibited her claim to our fame:
but strident
assertion is far from certain proof of nobility.
She’s firmly
convinced no woman is worthy
to bear my
babies and call her Dorothy
(for that’s
her name though she’ll always be ‘Ma’am’ to me).
She’s
appointed herself my marriage broker,
with scheming
worthy of a decadent toker
and assaults
on every debutantish sensibility;
What she
doesn’t ken is that come what may
she’ll never
manage my wedding day
despite her
dreams of considerable reams of lordly attendees.
I must
disappoint: I’m in love with a man;
we’ll soon be
away, thus thwarting her plan
to eventually
ensure that I’ll nevermore walk free.
She is, it is
true, kin to me through and through,
thus I cannot
ignore this personage who
has given me
breath -- then frustrated my destiny;
So I’ve hired
a nanny and also a lawyer:
both of them
have the keys to her foyer --
I’ll write
from long distance announcing my fait accompli.
I’ll do what
I can from wherever we are
whether its
Paris, or Moscow, or Zanzibar,
or somewhere
free in the heart of Poughkeepsie;
I may be her
son, but I’m no longer the one
whose job
it’s become to drop all and run
to come to
the aid, thoroughly unpaid, of this lady related to me.
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