| Ptolomy’s Last Pot, An Ode to Terra Sigilatta**
Portly Ptolomy the potter**
Craved a finish many potters long for.
So on his pot of terra cotta
Went seven coats of Sigillatta.
Innocently poor Ptolomy
Sigillatilized his pottery
Not knowing that psychology
Superceded Sigillatomy.
One coat caused crying consternation,
The second, awful agitation!
With the third came cursing incantations,
And the Fourth, remorseful recriminations.
The fifth frustrated Ptolomy’s mentations
With chronic ceramic defenestrations.
While his Sixth slipaceous application
Held no promise of sigillat-salvation.
Seven sigillatilations
Brought on unbridled irritation:
The secret sheen that potters sought
Was absent from Ptolomy’s pot.
So Ptolomy picked out a pebble,
A perfect pottery polishing bauble,
And rubbing with an earnestness
That belied his inner nervousness
He started on a tiny spot
On the backside of his little pot
To try to rub the dullness out
And show the sheen he’d dreamed about.
He rubbed around in each direction
Despairing of his pot’s perfection
And after hours of close inspection
At last he saw a slight reflection.
Many more hours of rubbing ensued
And slowly the dream that he pursued
Began to show under his hand.
But his body’d had all it could stand.
Even as he neared completion
Ptolomy faced his own deletion
For he’d neglected all nutrition
And was consumed by his own ambition.
Poor Ptolomy expired from extreme starvation
And Terra Sigillatilation. |
