With the permission of William Joyce





                                                     My Career With the N.Y. Times


When the balding professor waved
the N.Y. Times at our class
and said, " All the news
that's fit to print, "
I said to myself,
"I'll write all the news
that's not fit to print."


I did and was rejected
everywhere till Oakes came along.
Oakes' real name was "Ochs"
and he was about to inherit
several millions of N.Y. Times' money.
He was  assistant
to a famous publisher
and had arrived
at a state of rebellion
through reading.


Oakes hated everywhere
he'd ever been
including Paris and New Orleans
but thought the talking turds
in my novel were just the thing
to shake up the publishing industry.


He arranged for the famous publisher
to buy my novel
but the famous publisher drank a lot
and forgotten he'd sold
his famous press to an oil heiress.
So, he sent Oakes and my novel
to an old buddy publisher
from their Paris days.


The old buddy didn't like Oakes
nor the talking turds
in my novel.
Oakes smelled the end coming,
and with access
to the family newspaper,
gave an interview
in which he said
publishers were no different
than shoe salesmen.


Bye bye Oakes, bye bye
my novel.
So I headed south
to Mexico with a grand
Oakes lent me
to write more news
that was unfit to print.


I promptly caught hepatitis
but when Oakes telephoned
I told him I had used
his grand to buy dancing girls.
And when I arrived a year later
at Dulles International
Oakes had a collection agent
waiting for me.


For years collection agents
telephoned but didn't believe me
when I told them
their client had been paid
with talking turds.
When my novel finally appeared
The N.Y. Times reviewer,
a Jesuit priest, said,
"This novel never should have been published."
while Oakes applauded
from his penthouse
knowing one more rebel
had been squashed.