​POETRY  - 
  with a focus on Food
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Cooking the Books *
​by Thomas O. Davenport
The culinary arts, his specialty
Transforming sour results to taste more sweet
While skillfully avoiding penalties
The master of the dubious spreadsheet
 
He mixed the apples with the orange fruit
Confusing those whose prying eyes spied in
No cause could they devise to prosecute
For never did he spill a single bean
 
Sautés and stews and casseroles his range      
A million ways to fricassee the books
Protecting value on the stock exchange
More skilled by far than other crooked cooks
 
And once a year he’d throw a grand soiree
His April 15th greenback barbecue
The menu ran from salad to sorbet
Not present there? Internal Revenue
 
For he must forestall paying our tax claims
Those levies he cannot fail to defray
Else profits will all disappear in flames
The books won’t be cooked—they will be flambé-ed
​_______________________________
* Excerpted from Tom's new book, Get the Hell to Work--Humorous Verse about Work & Life.
Kelsay Books, American Fork, UT; 2020. Available at Amazon.com and kelsaybooks.com.   
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Thomas O. Davenport is an independent writer and business advisor living in San Francisco. He spent 32 years as a human resource consultant for a global consulting organization. He has written three business books and many serious articles and now writes sardonic verse, much of it commenting on business practices he observed (and helped create) and on social phenomena that amuse and bemuse him. In addition to Visas & Byways, his work has appeared in Defenestration, WORK Literary Magazine, Workers Write! and in the anthology Love Affairs at the Villa Nelle (Kelsay Books, 2019). You can also read his writings (verse and other) at www.worklodes.com.     
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​Vistas & Byways Review is the semiannual journal of fiction, nonfiction and poetry by members of Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) at San Francisco State University​.
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Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at San Francisco State University​ (OLLI at SF State) provides communal and material support to the Vistas & Byways  volunteer staff.