A Cautionary Verse

Dennis Lee
From:   unpublished, 1999.

My child, do not exaggerate,
Lest you incur a horrid fate—
As ancient oracles relate,
And modern texts corroborate.
For if you ever fabricate,
Dissimulate, prevaricate,
Or even minor facts inflate,
The fist of doom will crush you straight.
Suppose you choose to overstate
How long a spell you had to wait
Until a cab, two minutes late,
Responded to your calls irate.
Before this whopper can abate
Your heart will start to palpitate,
Your vital juices desiccate,
Your kidneys cease to operate.
Not only that: at lightning rate
Your mental functions, small and great,
Will shrivel and deteriorate
To pablum in your puny pate.
Thereafter, sentiments of hate
Will justly start to agitate
Your sturdy colleagues, man and mate,
And prompt them to vituperate,
Till through the world, a weary weight
Upon the modern welfare state,
You reel, you slump, you sob, you prate,
And choose your life to terminate.
But let me not too long dilate
Upon the horrors that await
A person who, disdaining fate,
Should ever once exaggerate.

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Dennis Lee's works copyright © to the author.