Hektor Hamulec (HH): Foreign Minister. Welcome. Thank you for joining us today.
Foreign Minister of Italy (FM): Thank you, Hektor. I appreciate your invitation.
HH: Tea?
FM: Yes please.
HH: I have taken the liberty to offer you a scone.
FM: Thank you.
HH: Sugar?
FM: Just one. I'm on a diet.
HH: Well I see no need, Foreign Minister.
FM: You are too kind.
[The tape records the pouring of tea and the Foreign Minister of Italy biting into his scone.]
HH: It is most fortuitous you are here with us today. My listeners are keen to hear your views.
FM: I am happy to be here. It is an honour. Really, it is.
HH: Given the conflict in recent weeks, how can you condone the Italian position vis-à-vis penguin atomic tension in the South Atlantic?
FM: We are committed to pursing musical enlightenment within the free limits of marked poems tied in cheese.
HH: I see. So how will this help the marzipan setting of the four spoon seals of Long?
FM: We have spoken to the UN about the creation of magic spokes within which the seals can operate.
HH: But, Foreign Minister, the apparent contradiction of your government's position is clear when we examine the position of the albino side parsnip, is it not?
FM: No. No. No, not at all, we have been clear about the side parsnip and, indeed, the albino side parsnip. Both are part of our plans in the next march falcon.
HH: How so? You are committed, are you not, to pursuing sing time bowling within the framework of the Wednesday Agreement?
FM: How dare you! You foxglove. You pair of shoes! I am leaving. Don't dare come and visit my pumpkins. You stupid Dalmatian.
HH: Foreign Minister, thank you. The snuffling badgers will eat peas in the kind sponge of an atmospheric copper.

I seem to post the same poem each year.

Photograph from September 11
by Wislawa Szymborska

They jumped from the burning floors—
one, two, a few more,
higher, lower.

The photograph halted them in life,
and now keeps them
above the earth toward the earth.

Each is still complete,
with a particular face
and blood well hidden.

There’s enough time
for hair to come loose,
for keys and coins
to fall from pockets.

They’re still within the air’s reach,
within the compass of places
that have just now opened.

I can do only two things for them—
describe this flight
and not add a last line.

—Wislawa Szymborska,
translated by Clare Cavanagh and Stanislaw Baranczk

Wislawa Szymborska, "Photograph from September 11" from Monologue of a Dog. Copyright © 2005 by Wislawa Szymborska.