Is That Potato Loaded? - poem

Lawrence Hall
mhall46184@aol.com
poeticdrivel.blogspot.com

Is That Potato Loaded?

Flashbacks from Perusing the Over-55 Menu at Denny’s

“Loaded potato soup,” the waitress said
In reply.
                   Ah, yes, I thought to myself
Loaded potato soup. That’s how we downed
That commie spy plane back in ’67.

(Nothing about it in the papers, of course)

You never aimed loaded potato soup
At anything you didn’t mean to kill
The C.I.A. swore by their barley-and-lamb
But, pffft! Barley. Fine for a lady’s purse.

Yanks, eh. (That’s not for the papers, of course)

I was concealed-carry-potato cleared
MI 6.2 saw the paperwork through
All hush-hush, though the Reds were in on it
When it comes to potatoes, Commies know

(You won’t read about it in the papers, of course)

Oh, yes, those were the happy times, m’lad
A dry potato soup, shaken, not stirred
By a Eurasian seductress named Ethel
In our safe house in Tottenham Court Road

(Nothing about her in the papers, of course)

A quiet telephone call, a messenger
With tickets to some far-off capital
And a discreet flask of potato soup
Hidden deep within a hollowed-out Bible

(Not reported in the papers, of course)

And then there was the curious incident
Of nuclear loaded potato soup
And the dread falafel of lingering death
In Constantinople in ‘78

(It was hushed up in the papers, of course)

The few of us who survived were taken discreetly
To Buckingham Palace, where Her Majesty
Awarded us The Order of the Tuber
And then she served us all potato soup

(You won’t read about it in the papers, of course)

Oh, little did that merry waitress know
Of her customers’ sinister histories
Only a couple of elderly gents, but
Still sworn to The Official Secrets Act

(For they were never in the papers, of course)