Feed not checked, near miss

My gray mare could read, a fact I kept from the neighbors. She liked poems and hated sums. Once she found a spelling error on a road sign and refused to pass. We stood there for two days until the king himself sent a painter with a brush and a humble note.

Octopus ink wrote my finest letters. I kept one as a clerk on a voyage to Macao. He could write with eight pens at the same time. He kept the log, did the sums, and drew the charts. When he blushed, the whole page turned pink, and I knew he had lied.

Up at the North Pole there is a real pole, and I put it there. It was my tent post. I stuck it in the ice one windy night and lost interest by morning. Every ship since has gone looking for it. Someone should really bring me back my tent.

Cobblers in Vienna made me a pair of boots that argued. The left wished to go to Italy. The right preferred the sea. I split the difference and walked to Trieste, where they shook hands and calmed down. I still keep them apart at night, to be on the safe side.

Ducks have always trusted me, and this is their mistake.