Ode to a Name
There once was time when the manner and size
Of a man and his name would equate,
Ivan, sincerely, was Terrible
And Peter and Henry were Great.
But today these conventional times introduce
Each name tag presenting a fiction,
Mr. Short is quite tall, Mr. Long rather small
And each face is a new contradiction.
Don’t count on Miss Loving, to be very nice
Or Miss Taylor, to know how to sew,
And from what I’ve heard, Mr. Sharp is a nerd
And Count NoMoney’;s rollin’ in dough.
And weak Mr. Strong is married to Peach
Who actually looks like a prune,
And the Feinsteins are toasting it up from a cup
With the Marches who married in June.
So next time we meet on Avenue Street
Should we play the memory game,
As the book that you took can’;t be told by it’;s look
Well, my face will not give you my name.
Hermine Hilton (copyright January 1988)