Shit Must Weigh Something

By Jules Abramovitz

So if your shit weighs more than your food,

It stands to reason you’ll lose weight.

So weigh your shit, and weigh your words,

‘Cause nobody likes bullshit.

And a person can only eat so much shit;

Because let’s face it, you can’t eat shit and lose weight.

And I’ll tell you what else is a real problem--

To be scared shitless;

‘Cause obviously if you can’t shit

You can’t lose weight.

Furthermore some people can’t tell shit from shinola,

(And for sure, no one knows if shinola weighs anything).

Other people are lower than whale shit,

Which is the lowest thing in the world,

‘Cause it lies on the bottom of the ocean, 

Which it wouldn’t if it didn’t weight anything.

Ah, here’s an intriguing subject for Metaphysical Inquiry:

Is there shit in space?

Because if shit is weightless,

Is it, (given our premise), still shit?

Or does old shit weigh more than new shit,

Since there accrues to it the weight of years?

In other words is the weight of shit, like everything else, relative?

Ah, how to weigh the seductive power of fruitless speculation?

And yes, it’s easy to fall prey

To the facile cynicism of Who Gives a Shit,

Or worry one’s life away

Anxiously waiting for the shit to hit the fan,

Or hedge one’s bets by not shitting where one eats,

And so forth.

But finally I put away childish things,

And in Conversations With Remarkable Men,

In the search for Poetic Miraculousness,

I realized

That I had better shit or get off the pot.

So this, Set Down This--

(They didn’t call him Tough Shit for nothing)

One can live in despair

(And die in despair),

Tirelessly cleaning up other people’s shit,

Endlessly shoveling shit against the tide,

Or, still striving, even now, at this late date,

Attain to a new, exalted level of existence

Where one finally, at long last,

You guessed it, friends,

Gets one’s shit together.