Saturday, September 11, 2010

SLOW WIT

Editor's note: "How many times have you said something stupid and a few minutes or a few hours later thought of a perfectly brilliant remark that you could have made? I envy those who always say the right thing at the right time," Dad wrote as the introduction to this poem. I suspect most of us have been there, done that!

I can always come up
With a snappy reply
After it's too late to say it;
I'm really a witty
Sort of a guy,
But I'm just too slow to display it.

By the time I can think
Of a good repartee,
To enliven a dull conversation,
Everyone's gone
From the party but me,
And I talk to myself in frustration.

I'd like to be quick,
And master the trick
Of returning a salient word;
It's awful to be
A pokey like me,
And appear like Mortimer Snerd.

Some day I'll come back
With a timely wisecrack,
It's a dream I'll cherish forever;
But it may be as late
As Heaven's front gate,
That St. Peter will tell me, "How clever!"

--Autumn Acres (1982)

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