Oblique Strategies poems

107: Remember those quiet evenings

Remember those quiet evenings
sat before the fire
in the days before civilisation?

How we laughed at the stories
of streets paved with meat
and longed for the certainty of walls.

One day, one of our tribe
brought home an Idea.
We threw it on the fire, and it cooked.

"Delicious," said the chief
as he ordered another plateful,
"and so easy to swallow."

11. A line has two sides

A line has two sides.
I am on this side, you that.
What will happen when we have children?

Will we draw the line around ourselves
make a circle none of us can step over?

77. The most important thing is the thing most easily forgotten

if I could remember
where I put it.

2. Don't be frightened of cliches

when they come down from the mountains,
hordes of them, to drink at their
favourite watering-holes.

They will try to be friendly, smile,
offer the hand of friendship across
the great divide. Don't take it,

for chance you become like them.
Don't ask them for credit
as a refusal often offends

but watch them as they go
leaving a fine mess behind
we will have to clear up.

Nine months later,
your women will give birth to poets.