Marty Brown

Marty Brown was a moth-eaten man,

With biros lost in his hair,

People said he was a professor of History,

Though no one was quite sure where

He specialised in the coinage of Louis the German,

A subject he had chosen
Because he was certain,

It was the most boring topic under the sun,

And people would leave him alone

At dinner parties and in taxi queues,

People would ask him, 'what do you do?'

He would tell them,

'The coinage of Louis the German'

And they would look down at their shoes.

But one day he met a moth-eaten man,

Who asked him, 'What do you do?'

And when Marty replied,

The man looked in his eyes,

And said 'Oh shit, I do too'

They stared at each other,

For an hour and a half,

Neither one saying a word,

And then tacitly agreed,

To go their own ways,

And tell no one of what they had learnt.