After living in the Octagon

The pyramids seem new.

Though their gleaming limestone slopes

Are emeried dust

They shift like spineless cobwebs

Towards the eternal Nile

Like tall Manhattan treelines,

Although limestone doesn't rust.

Thank God for spineless telephones

Where trees can converse without nerves.

The muscles of their carpaths

Leave us separate, deaf and dumb.

Blinded round ears

Search for aging Oriental songbirds.

Their voices too

Are smoked cancer silent.

Jenny Lind

Played the ballerina

At Royal Albert Hall

Just last year

When the pyramids were new.

They did not gather dust

For their wise old Irish servant

(a one-time Egyptian savant)

Knew how to guard a pyramid from dust.

She had once learned all the secrets

From a very ancient Druid

Who used Khufu's pyramid

Protection fluid.

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