The Fantastic Story of the Time-Travel Machine
Last night I discovered
To my great surprise
A wonder which nearly
Blew out my eyes.
A giant machine
Full of levers and gears
And a space-time distorter
Built by Charles DeBeers.
It allowed me to travel
To any past time
To faraway places
Far past the Rhine.
As an NSA student
I felt myself moved
To see all the stuff
That’s now in the Louvre.
Not trinkets, mind you,
Nor that useless trash
That Egypt keeps claiming
Is able to match
The grandeurs of Assyria
Palaces of stone
Cuneiform carvings
with meanings unknown.
The Assyrians meant it
They didn’t leave clues
To the triangle script
That caused men to muse.
But I didn’t go to see
Their script so absurd
I went there to meet
Tiglath-Pileser the Third.
They said he fought lions
Killed ‘em in bunches
They said he had nations
Held fast in his clutches.
But my machine didn’t have
In its voluminous girth
A device to translate
What they said on Assyrian turf.
So I had to just stand there,
Mouth gaping in shock
At the incredible things
They made out of stone blocks.
Then the guards found me out,
And I had to run.
As they shouted out what I can
only assume meant ‘You Scum!’
I’d forgotten the legends,
The stories, the lore
Of the Assyrian taste
For hideous gore.
And so if I do not
Stop at this verse,
I’ll wind up beheaded,
Detarsaled, or worse.
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