Ballad Of ‘memo’ Roy Poem by David Harris

For JoAnn
Who in conversation inspired this little ditty.

This is the Ballad of ‘Memo’ Roy
the fastest memos in the world.
Roy writes a memo every minute
just to remind himself what to do.
He even writes one to tell himself
he must visit the loo.

It all started many years ago
when the doctor told Roy
he was suffering from
short-term memory loss.
Now he writes memos
to remind himself to write a memo
for everything he must do.

He writes one late at night
to remind him
to get up in the morning
and one in the morning
to remind him to go to bed at night.
It is estimated he writes
quite a few hundred memos everyday.

His house is filed with little bits
of yellow paper stuck up here and there.
He couldn’t watch TV
even if he wanted to.
There are s many memos on it
you can’t see the screen.

One day his pen ran out
and no memos he could write.
He couldn’t even write a memo
to remind himself to buy a pen.
Then he found a pencil
and shouted that will do.

Now he is able to write memos to himself
to tell himself what to do.
As far as I know,
he hasn’t written a memo
to remind himself to sharpen
the pencil once and a while.

28 February 2008