A BIT IRISH (by Medbh Gillard and James Healy)

THE BURDENS OF A CLASSICAL EDUCATION...
"Not tonight, dear, I have a headache."

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Footnote 1: The joke is not a good joke if it  needs an explanation.

Footnote 2: Explanation. In the works of the Roman poet Ovid (also known as Publius Ovidius Naso before he changed his name to spite his record company) the last man and woman on earth are shown going to the oracle at Themis to ask how to repopulate the planet. My old Latin teacher RP Bennet remarked as he introduced the story to us: "These two were a bit innocent." The oracle at Themis advised the couple: "Go to a dark room, take off all their clothes, and throw the bones of your great mother over your shoulders In this way you will repopuate the land." The great mother apparently was the planet earth and her bones were rocks. Mr Bennet remarked to us of the oracle's advice: "It's up to yourselves of course but when you leave school I'd advise you to be careful where you go throwing old bones about the place. Personally I prefer the old way." 

apologia pro cornballism mea

Marriedski brushed a blonde tendril from her eye.
It was her glorious golden hair.
She was not being attacked by an octopus with highlights.
Around us the Muse Cafe burbled.
She brushed her hair back and fixed me with a vary hard stare indeed.
"My marriage is in trouble," she told me.
I did my best to return her stare without the hardness but also without any possibility of misunderstanding.
"Everyone's marriage is in trouble," I said soft as iron. "Everyone has these problems. It's the way of the world. You can overcome them. In a short while the problems will seem less powerful. Then they will be gone completely."
We talked a few minutes longer.
Then she returned to her life.
After she had left me, the ghost of Boris Pasternak appeared at my table.
"Close one there Heelers," he murmured, stroking his beard.
I quaffed my coffee.
"Not at all," sez I. "There was no badness in it. She was just looking for advice."
The great Pasternak raised bushy Russian eyebrows and grinned.
"Ha!" he proclaimed. "Now who's a deluded purveyor of naive socialistic fantasies?"

splashings

in the pool of evening
quick silver
ripples widening
forever

cold water thing
risen to exult
in some unthinking imagining
ordinary is wonder enough

what do fishes dream