The POTW: Verse Til It Hurts

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POTW #874
(Week of 18 January, 2015)
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Surprise, it's a poem! I had not intended for this to become Poem Quarterly, but it has indeed been three months since my last entry, by far the longest gap in the history of the POTW. Hopefully we can resume a slightly more frequent service going forward.

I've been meaning to write this particular poem for quite a few weeks now. I noticed that whenever I went anywhere with Max and there were other babies there, I instinctively and uncontrollably engaged in a sort of silent competitive judgment in which all other children were deemed to be inferior to Max based on whatever qualities I could come up with. I assume everyone does this, out of some basic human need for reassurance that you do have the best possible baby. Or, possibly it's just me and I'm disturbed. Anyway, it needed to be a poem, and the poem needed to have this title:

Mine's Bigger

They say you shouldn't judge by size
But mine is bigger than yours
His champion tip can brush the skies
Which the skies themselves are wont to implore

And mine has a smooth and symmetrical dome
While yours is contorted and bent
A mangy anemic unprincipled gnome
The waiter of our discontent

Mine is more pleasing as well to the nose
With a delicate ginger and cinnamon scent
Yours reminiscent of cheese twixt the toes
That's been passed through a goat and allowed to ferment

Babbling, mine is a Mozart symphony
Melody, harmony, eloquent notes
Yours is more of a trash-lid timpani
Played by epileptic stoats

Mine is intelligent, active, agile
Confident, engaging, adorable
Yours is plodding, sluggish, fragile
Clumsy, whiny, opaque, and deplorable

Behold superlative excellence
Comparing their objective scores
By every means of measurement
My baby is better than yours

Copyright © 2015 by Dave Grossman

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Interested in more? Check out "Ode to the Stuff in the Sink," Dave's illustrated book of "guy" verse (concerning the deeper philosophies of things like not doing the laundry, putting your feet on the furniture, and of course beer) at the Maximegalomporium (our store). And did I mention it was illustrated? Pictures!

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