9691. A BIT OF A DEARTH

A BIT OF A DEARTH

There are a lot of things going around :

Pretty much, you name it, it's there -

disease, rumor, innuendo, sickness 

and death all together. There are

chartists and amortization tables

and things of that nature  -  they

watch all this stuff. Burning a candle

dispenses a flame, but they search for

smoke. It's a dead giveaway for dead

giveaways. Actuarial tables, telling

me on what day I should be dying.

-

Just outside Trenton, there's a real river of

fire; or, well, stream, meandering brook,

whatever the small things are called.

They used to smelt iron there, in the old

industrial revolution days, when Trenton

made and the world really did take. 

Locomotives, steamboats, overland

wagons, wooden sticks and boxes for

matches, ladies undergarments.

Roebling, wire-rope, steel magnates

coming into town for a week, staying

at one of the grand hotels, to make deals.

-

And probably to check out ladies undergarments

again  -  once for business and once for pleasure.

Double your pleasure, double your fun. Life's

twice as good with Doublemint Gum. I want
to think that's how glum advertising began.
Forced into a necessity with no way out,
with that small river of fire coursing by.