Except after C,

Unless pronounced A

As in ‘neighbor’ or ‘weigh'”

Education is forfeit for reinforcing such rules!

Sound a feisty reveille while eyeing the schools!

Neither will our heirs be agreeing to deceptions

Once seeing, herein, these sufficient exceptions:

We were seized by a feeling

For fleeing on the ceiling

To a leisurely meal

With Keith, Sheila, and Neil

We drank madeira, so foreign, in steins

Along with a surfeit of weird blueish wines

Being foolish, took codeine, ate ancient proteins

Therein guaranteeing these ogreish scenes

Wherein we’re canoeing to a new sovereign state

While deicing a kaleidoscope on a hot jadeite plate

And kneeing obeisance to an overseeing king

Our plebeian lips kissed his counterfeit ring.

Then we unveiled their sleight-of-hand trick

Deifying a heifer, with effect atheistic

And falling from the heights with a loud seismic crunch

We reignited the nonpareils we had heisted for lunch.

So I before E

Except after C

Unless pronounced A?

False decreeing, I say!

©1995 by Jef Raskin