Ogden Nash Poems

Behold the hippopotamus!
We laugh at how he looks to us,
And yet in moments dank and grim,
I wonder how we look to him.
...

This is my dream,
It is my own dream,
I dreamt it.
I dreamt that my hair was kempt.
...

When people aren't asking questions
They're making suggestions
And when they're not doing one of those
They're either looking over your shoulder or stepping on your toes
...

In fourteen hundred and ninety-two,
Someone sailed the ocean blue.
Somebody borrowed the fare in Spain
For a business trip on the bounding main,
...

There is a knocking in the skull,
An endless silent shout
Of something beating on a wall,
And crying, “Let me out!”
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The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks
Which practically conceal its sex.
...

The people upstairs all practise ballet
Their living room is a bowling alley
Their bedroom is full of conducted tours.
Their radio is louder than yours,
...

How wise I am to have instructed the butler
to instruct the first footman to instruct the second
footman to instruct the doorman to order my carriage;
I am about to volunteer a definition of marriage.
...

Though you know it anyhow
Listen to me, darling, now,
...

Bring down the moon for genteel Janet;
She's too refined for this gross planet.
She wears garments and you wear clothes,
You buy stockings, she purchases hose.
...