New at IWP Books: Richard Armour, 1946, Leading With My Left (Introduction by Max Eastman).

State of Mind

Gray grow my hairs
 And bald grows my pate
From the state of affairs
 Of affairs of state.

Two Bad

Black marketeers are called up short
 And hotly deprecated
And when they’re caught, haled into court,
 Fined, or incarcerated.

All well and good. I’m nothing loath,
 Just so, with prices higher,
We don’t forget the fault’s due both
 To seller and to buyer.

Linguist

Byrnes Learns to Say “I Agree” and “No” in Russian. — Newspaper Headline

It would appear the Secretary
Has not a large vocabulary.
The range is great, that’s plainly seen,
But still, there’s not much in between.

He lacks the words for “maybe” and
“Perhaps,” and “on the other hand.”
He cannot say, in accents pure,
“That may well be, I’m not quite sure.”

With only “I agree” and “no”
With which to handle Uncle Joe,
With heads he wins and tails he loses,
A lot depends on which he chooses.