To Own!

To own, to own!
My god, I’ve got to own!
Everywhere I look I see
something I’ve got to own!
No matter if I’m shopping
or just peering ‘neath a stone;
everywhere I look I see
something I’ve got to own:

a box, a book, a pickled fig,
a plaque, a checkered flag,
a shepherd’s crook, a fricassee,
a goldfish in a bag,
a coin, a car, a dimpled kid,
a foreign flat, a sock,
a picture of a monkey
with its hands upon

To own to own!
You see, I’ve got to own.
My greed has got the best of me
-it won’t leave me alone.
I've tried to stop by hiding out,
just staying here at home;
it found me on the internet,
it got me on the phone.

An egg, a rock, a glockenspiel,
a portmanteau, a cleat,
a croquet set, a cracker box,
a ticket for a seat,
a plaque, a jack, a whirligig,
a singing plastic bass,
a bulbous rubber phallus
made for sticking up

To own to own!
Oh, how I’ve got to own!
Once I see something I like
my av’rice can’t be thrown.
Whatever can be held or smelled
or dug or built or sewn
or seen or heard or lied about
I must possess alone!

A pen, a cart, a candy gram,
a ha-ha fence, a tree,
a ham, a cat, a knurled knob,
some pills that make you pee,
a boat, a coat, a spool of thread,
a wooden decoy duck:
it doesn’t matter what I buy,
I do not give

To own, to own
-the feeling’s only grown!
I’ve never cared for renting things
or taking them on loan,
yet when my monthly statement comes
I hang my head and moan,
for everywhere I look I see
something I’ve got to own!

cae 4-28-02