All But Everything

                                                      for M. in mid-air

There's no ladder from "alpha" to "omega",

no one's at either end to say, "Bravo"

(Well, but for that being I call Charlie),

There's nobody to praise the Delta of Venus,

Nothing for that praise to echo off of;

No floors for foxtrots, sand or swale for golf;

Not one fleabag, good, or grand hotel.

It's dark as India ink, but Juliet

Soon will hear the lark, or long ago did.

A kilogram of lima beans is not

Sitting on a shelf in any larder;

And Michelangelo would seek in vain,

Pope or no, for marble. It's November,

Or might as well be - Oscar night forever.

No one dressed in feathers's singing "Pa pa,

Pa Pa Pa" backed by orchestra or toys.

If Quebec secedes or seceded, who cares,

Since Romeo's unsighed-for or forgotten?

High Sierras? Dust, or dust-to be still.

The one law holds: that it takes two to tango.

All or nothing's uniformly spread.

The victory's impossible or moot,

Plus there is no glass to pour a whiskey.

No use for x-ray vision. No New York Yankees.

But at either end there stamps a zebra:

One black on white, the other white on black.