Bad News
by Garrison Keillor
A hard year and trouble brewing everywhere,
Insurance companies and banks sliding headfirst
Toward oblivion at 50 cents a share
And heading south. The bubble has burst
and our mortgaged castle in the air
Will likely crash and burn, but don’t despair,
Though probably our pension fund is cursed.
For still we have this lovely love affair
In which we are so steadily immersed
And if we must go on welfare and wear
Used clothes and live on angel hair and liverwurst,
Still I’ll smile whenever I see you there,
Bathing in the creek behind our shack,
I’ll love you still and hope you love me back.
Ulysses
by Garrison Keillor
Here by the enormous swimming pool at the Biltmore
Twenty-six young dark-skinned women lie
In tiny bikinis like mermaids on the shore,
And I, bound for Ithaca, just sail on by,
Heading for you, Penelope, to tell the tale,
How that whole Trojan War gave me the willies,
The pointlessness of it, and I set sail,
Having paid off Homer and left Achilles
In his tent, and was lucky to get a favorable wind
And stopped here at the Biltmore to recompute
My course, and found twenty-six dark skinned
Women, their breasts displayed like fresh fruit
. Thanks but no thanks. They only want a tan.
. You, dear, love a good story. I’m your man.
Fourteen Lines 