Antidote for Approaching Blather

For the next two weeks we'll endure a season of unbelievable blather and pretentious punditry, ratcheted up to unbearable levels by a swarm of motor-mouthed commentators, wacked out conventioneers, and scribblers far and wide. On this, the day the Democrats open their convention in Denver and a week before the Republicans do the same in Minneapolis, I thought it a good time to share this little poem I just wrote. I guarantee you, there's more sense here than the hot air and nonsense we're going to be hearing from the pack of pols and wise (wo)men in the coming days.

A Red, Red Nose

My nose is like a red, red rose.
Aflame with the season’s curse.
I cough and sneeze and snuffle.
Which only make it worse.

I bundle up, swathe my head,
And down a flood of juices.
And all I get is a red raw throat,
A temperature and mucus.

This winter woe must run its course
through throat and chest and lungs.
Meanwhile I wend the doctor’s line,
say “ahhh” and stick out my tongue.

“It doesn’t look good,” he gravely says.
“So here’s what I propose:
Drink your fluids and stay in bed.
I’ve never seen a redder nose.”

After Robert Burns’s poem “A Red, Red Rose”