Declunking the Clacks
by cricketjeff on March 21, 2019. © Jeff Green, All rights reserved
The problems that China has suffered,
As year after year has rolled through,
From which other nations were buffered
By forces that they never knew,
Were finally ended last Easter
(Good Friday if I’m any judge)
Like a bloody good kick up the keister
It caused the whole nation to budge.
For almost one half of forever
The figures would not come out right
Though they were most awfully clever
And laboured long into the night.
With the clickety clack of their fingers
On beads that were strung out on wires
(A small irritation that lingers
Far longer than human desires)
Being not quite as smooth as it should be –
Some clickety-clacks ended clunk.
The reason, if reason there could be,
Was one that nobody had thunk.
Then one little girl got a present
From an Uncle who lived far away,
The son of a lowly born peasant
And a duchess who never said nay!
A silvery grey reel of duct-tape
Is useful in ways you can’t count
If you’re careless it’s hopelessly stuck tape
And your troubles will rapidly mount.
Our heroine though was reflective
And never got stuck up at all
She was also a cunning detective
(And very good looking and tall).
She thought about clunks that weren’t clanking
And numbers that added up wrong
The abacus they used for banking
Had a crack almost half-way along
With her duct tape was fixed in a jiffy
And the clickety clacks sounded sweet
The sums were no longer squiffy
And my overlong poem’s complete!
Author notes
Hot Pads, Belt Loops, and User Manuals, Automatic Timers for Toasters, a
machine that weaves chain-link fencing into being, the contents of a merchant
ship that makes steady runs between Tarakan and Balikpapan, the last page of
Edgar Allan Poe’s autobiography, a pastiche of any NickBaker poem, a world-
renowned person losing his/her pants on stage, or my very favorite subject in
the whole world: A broken Chinese abacus repaired with duct tape.
English