Gene Moutoux's Poetry
Ernesto’s Mnemonics
The Italian painter Ernesto once had
An embarrassing problem that made him quite sad:
When to pick up an order a customer came,
He ne’er could remember the customer’s name.
His friends offered sympathy, pizza, and wine;
The crestfallen painter had no urge to dine.
Sensing an impasse, his best friend Odestian
Lucidly spoke this mnemonic suggestion:
"If you have a client whose name is McGee,
Draw quickly a small, inconspicuous bee
In the lower right corner, right next to your name.
Mutatis mutandis, do always the same."
"Well, this," said the painter with gesticulation,
"Puts all in a different hue or gradation.
It’s now ineluctably tied to my ken;
I’ll use my new talent again and again."
His next couple clients were Bauer and Mauer;
On each of their paintings he painted a flower.
Alas, he lost track of which work went to whom,
And, presto, Ernesto relapsed into gloom.
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