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During an unforgettable evening, Irving Layton regaled us with a saga of legal woes with three ex-wives!
After hearing my first poem Irving calling me: “An intellectual Ogden Nash”!
I then wrote him this poem, which is now in the “Layton Concordia University collection‘.

“Irving Layton”, the lion roared,
“Is dogged by judicial hounds”.
With a gesture the eagle soared,
By phrase and verse he impounds

Their petty pernicious procession
In Solomon's legal guise,
Plying their parasitic profession
Before his weary eyes.

Like Gulliver in Swift’s tale,
His victories were pyrrhic indeed,
He saw the thieves were put in jail
At the price of his Lawyers greed.

The “moral” of this story
To loosely use the word,
Is “justice is not blind”,
It’s functionally absurd.

Copyright Lawrence Klein 2000

Hello and welcome Lawrence,

I guess with so many divorces Mr. Layton certainly had ample opportunity to get to know some lawyers
I think he was involved with an obscenity trial as well!!!

Thank you for sharing your poem as well as your Irving Layton story.

Cate

What beat(ing) would you/he suggest, Lawrence?

Cate wrote:Hello and welcome Lawrence,

I guess with so many divorces Mr. Layton certainly had ample opportunity to get to know some lawyers
I think he was involved with an obscenity trial as well!!!

Thank you for sharing your poem as well as your Irving Layton story.

Cate

Here's my poem which engendered Irving Layton's comment: "An Intellectual Ogden Nash":

WORDS

Are words our masters or are they our slave?
A hopeless conundrum, but let me save
You from this riddle. For it is only speech,
Internal and externalized which requires the reach

For definitions of ideas, conceptions, and thought
Which are inherent to mankind, and need not be taught.
But words are not plastic, but rigid and fixed,
And it matters not how they are mixed,

they still must mean what the dictionary said,
and they structure the ideas that go on in your head.
So, until you slip their slippery noose
And really let your mind go loose,

to wander through emotion, sensation and space,
you’ll never understand, the meaning of grace.

Copyright Lawrence Klein 1972

clever

Your rhymes are indeed very good.

It most have felt very good to hear such nice words of praise from Mr. Layton!

This poem is a lyrical expression about the GSR2 that created http://www.ThoughtTechnology.com

The GSR2 is a simple machine
which indicates what your thoughts mean
in terms of anxiety, tension and stress
which put your body under duress.

Natural postures of the mind
are not necessarily of the kind
that produce logical efficiency
or spark mental creativity.

The GSR2 will help you uncover
emotional ties, as you discover
which thoughts make the tone raise,
and help you clear the mental haze.

Or focus your minds eye on a flame
as you learn how to tame
left brain thoughts, which take place
when you direct the minds pace

to problem solve or analyze
reality by posing whys
and wherefores to yourself. Right brain thought
produces answers which are not sought.

Skin talk assists you achieve tranquility
for to quiet your mind is to set it free.

Copyright Lawrence Klein 1975