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With This Poem All Things Are Possible

This poem has been sent to you for aesthetic pleasure. The original is in England, but millions worldwide read it faithfully each day. It is not a virus, but an opportunity to gain aesthetic pleasure and pass it along to others. To do this you must pay for and distribute twenty gift subscriptions to this magazine, which will be reprinting the poem in all future issues. Cooperate within nine days and you will receive pleasure yourself. Break the chain and you will suffer horribly. This threat is valid even if you are not stupid.

Note the following: a schizophrenic outpatient was disturbed by the poem and didn’t want to waste money on the gift subscriptions. Nine days later he could no longer explain the holy texts he had spent years writing. A Rhodes scholar “didn’t get it” and wallowed forever in mediocrity. A highly-placed publishing executive offered the poet a job. Three days later he received Kim Basinger in the mail! Women everywhere offered themselves freely to the poet and were rewarded with pay raises and extra vacation time. Meanwhile, a man in a Third World country never even read the poem and contracted leprosy.

Derek Walcott complained when the poem mentioned him directly, but had secretly enjoyed the part about Kim Basinger. That same week he won a $7.2 million dollar Lotto jackpot and a second Nobel Prize for literature. However, no more of his own poems were published until he publicly vindicated the poet and signed over both checks. Tom Frank of The Baffler liked the part about the gift subscriptions but rejected the poem anyway. His girlfriend left him within a week, and he was plagued by expensive car repairs. When he decided to reconsider, he received a new Testarossa and a much better-looking girlfriend.

Send the rest of your money directly to the poet. Do not ignore this, it works.