Accretion

There was a poet, a Great Venetian,
Who was greatly afflicted with the gift of accretion.
His poems were small for a minute or two,
But by the hour one poem grew and grew,
Until it filled up a page, then filled up a book,
Then filled up his house, his street, and every last nook
In the city--then Italy, all of Europe and France,
The poem even got in King George's underpants.
But on and on went the poet, forming brand new accretions
To his poetry--failing to make much needed deletions--
Until his poem spilled into the ocean and swam through the seas,
Through Egypt to the shores of Tripoli,
Through Greenalnd and Iceland and to each Pole it fled,
To a place where every white bear and penguin could have read,
Accreting until it climbed over China's great wall,
And spreading until it reached Niagra's great falls.
People were swimming in rhymes all over the earth,
And the poem started causing much more trouble than mirth,
Because after all over the world it had ran,
It was hard to tell just where it had began
Or who was to blame for such endless accretion--
For everyone was anxious to see their completion.