In your 'flea' time, some poems.

One. Flea. Spare.  
I break it down like that so that you get each word.  Trust me, it's much easier when you see the words than simply hearing them.  When someone first told me what the season line up of plays was, I thought the play was called "One Fleece Bear."  In taking ticket orders, we've gotten orders for "One Flea Square," "One Tree Square," and "One Flea Space."  To clarify things, let me share with you the origin of the title: John Donne's poem "The Flea." 

Mark but this flea, and mark in this,   

How little that which thou deniest me is;   

Me it sucked first, and now sucks thee,

And in this flea our two bloods mingled be;   

Thou know’st that this cannot be said

A sin, or shame, or loss of maidenhead,

    Yet this enjoys before it woo,

    And pampered swells with one blood made of two,

    And this, alas, is more than we would do.

Oh stay, three lives in one flea spare,

Where we almost, nay more than married are.   

This flea is you and I, and this

Our mariage bed and mariage temple is;   

Though parents grudge, and you, we are met,   

And cloisterd in these living walls of jet.

    Though use make you apt to kill me,

    Let not to that, self-murder added be,

    And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since

Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?   

Wherein could this flea guilty be,

Except in that drop which it sucked from thee?   

Yet thou triumph’st, and say'st that thou   

Find’st not thy self, nor me the weaker now;

    ’Tis true; then learn how false, fears be:

    Just so much honor, when thou yield’st to me,

    Will waste, as this flea’s death took life from thee.

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And since we're on the topic of fleas, I would like to share a poem I first encountered on the wall of my sixth grade team teacher's classroom and found again recently thanks to the world wide web.  It has to do with a flea, so if you were curious about the connection, there you go.  It exemplifies homophones and alliteration, both things I love.

A fly and a flea flew up in a flue.

Said the fly to the flea, "What shall we do?"

"Let's fly," said the flea.

"Let's flee," said the fly.

So they fluttered and flew up the flaw in the flue.

If only the characters of One Flea Spare could escape their confinement so easily...

l