Daily Couplets - 0466 - Not After Mark Twain Those Annual Bills Poem by Jonathan ROBIN

This poem was revised 18 March 2013 entitled Those Daily Bills. Although the first version was in fact written 26 October 1991 it might appear in hindsight to be a parody of Mark Twain whose poem was Those Annual Bills fortuitously discovered on 27 July 2008 on reading Leo Long's take which follows

These annual bills! these annual bills!
How many a song their discord trills
Of 'truck' consumed, enjoyed, forgot,
Since I was skinned by last year's lot!

Those joyous beans are passed away;
Those onions blithe, O where are they?
Once loved, lost, mourned—now vexing ills.
Your shades troop back in annual bills!

And so 'twill be when I'm aground
These yearly duns will still go round,
While other bards, with frantic quills,
Shall damn and damn these annual bills!
Mark Twain

Those Monthly Bills

Those monthly bills, oh how they irk
but they're the cause of why I work
To taste the sweet so dearly earned
is but to greet one lesson learned

Of cash consumed and ledger books
and old receipts in cardboard nooks
I struggle sure to tie loose ends
but find myself in debt again

A slave I am to mortal needs
and all those things on which they feed
I'll work ‘til death if that's my fate
and then decide which bills can wait

This castle mine is but a home
and reign I will if left alone
To work like mad from dusk to dawn
All mighty king, you're but a pawn!
Leo Long

As a general rule, the number in the title refers to the chronological order of the first version unless the poem was omitted from the original list and rediscovered. Revised versions retain the initial number. Kindly request permission before posting elsewhere.