How box and cupboard
Amazing mousetrap entails
A mind bewildered.
To build the perfect mousetrap
You must be smarter than the mouse
They're such clever little rodents
They could rule most any house
It may take a bit more effort
Than placing cheese atop a trap
With some imagination
You can do it in a snap
I wouldn't recommend a gun
Or even a baseball bat
But if everything else fails
You should get yourself a cat
Entrapping the magic,
philosophers moan
Theory after theory,
no meat on the bone
They label and mark,
their didactics retooled
Force feeding their ramble
to dilettante-fools
And when in the end
they are then proven wrong
They slink back to their hollows,
where the vanquished now throng
But a new tier of ‘masters’
has taken their place
To lecture and spiel
—and pontificate
(Baldwin School: March, 2021)
“You lose sixty seconds of happiness
For every minute you're mad”
So damn well cheer up everybody
Things aren't really that bad
Ralph Waldo Emerson once said
While not exactly that way
Ralphie was a pretty smart cookie
So listen to what he had to say
“If you build a better mousetrap
The world will beat a path to your door”
No truer words have ever been uttered
An old smarty pants, that's for sure
“Don't be squeamish about your actions
Life is just one big experiment”
Be not afraid to step out of the box
You could be the next company president
“You lose sixty seconds of happiness
For every minute you're mad”
So buck up my laddies and lassies
It's the best life you'll ever have!
A better mousetrap he addresses
To the unbelieving masses.
Painless, bloodless, the creature won’t feel a thing!
They shake their empty heads at the impossible
For there is always hurt in Death’s Sting
I'm not all that handy,
nor so very bright too
I sometimes ask dumb questions
that's one thing I'm apt to do
One day I asked my father;
"Say, Dad, what's a ratchet?"
he fixed me with a wise look,
and said, "Son, it's just a
bit bigger than a mouse sh_t!