for Sally Durant Hereditary Keeper of the Tradition at the Bobby Burns Birthday Bash Saturday, January 22, 2005.

If you have read "A Hole in the Universe" you are aware that a deceased friend of mine used to celebrate Robert Burns birthday with a few invitees. Among the festivities was the reading of selections from Burns' body of work. In 2005 I rebelled and read my own poem entitled Haggis. What the hell is Haggis? You're very close. Read the poem.

HAGGIS

Tis widely accepted.
Nearly everyone knows
the term Scotch Whiskey
is redundant prose.

Whiskey makes everything
function most smoothly,
commerce and finance
and politics, truly.

Scotch seems to have fostered
the colonization
of the civilized world
by a blue visaged nation.

Still, one suspects this
ambrosial libation
actually plays the role
of mere lubrication.

So, if Scotch is the oil
that greases the way.
What fuels the effort?
What wins the day?

Sheep guts and onions
and oatmeal and fat
all cooked in a stomach.
Try feasting on that.

With a belly full of this
gustatory array
conquering the world
is just children’s play.

Haggis and Whiskey will
create quite a spell
but Haggis and Boone’s Farm
might serve just as well.