Richard Brautigan (pictured) wrote a very funny poem called "Haiku Ambulance," and once I stole the title-concept from it and him and wrote a poem called "Zen Ambulance," which plays around with that infamous tree falling in the forest, etc.
For the second time, I'm pilfering Brautigan's concept, this time in connection to proverbs.
Proverb Ambulance
Don't put all of your baskets
on top of one egg, unless the year
is 1929, say, and you're in Vaudeville,
in need of money, playing the Pantages,
and have a basket-act. Look:
before you leap, ask yourself or
someone you trust, "Do I really
need to leap?" Haste makes waste,
but not as much of it as cruise-ships,
which sail slowly and stuff people
with food: you do the biology. Unless
someone asks you, "Incidentally,
was Rome built in 24 hours?" don't
say, "Rome wasn't built in a day."
"Fool me once, shame on you. Fool
me twice, and I advise you to sleep
with one eye closed." You dig?
Hans Ostrom Copyright 2008
