"Smart"
This poem draws to a close on an image of pure irony when the speaker’s dad
“closed his eyes and shook his head—
Too proud of me to speak.”
After learning that his son traded the dollar bill he had earlier given him for first two quarters which he traded for three dimes which he traded for four nickels which he traded for five pennies because
“five is more than four!”
“I’m Making a List”
The list that the speaker compiling is comprised of things to say when being polite such as “Thank you” and “Excuse me.” The poem ends with the speaker asking that if there were any examples that he has forgotten before ironically concluding that if so, the reader can “stick them in your eye!”
"The Search"
The speaker here declares that he accomplished something no one ever has before: he actually found the pot of gold said to be waiting at the end of the rainbow. After a brief celebration of his good luck by declaring ownership:
“it’s mine, it’s mine, it’s mine at last…”
things quickly turn ironic:
“What do I search for now?”
"True Story"
Arguably, perhaps, no poem in the collection ends on a note of such profound irony as “True Story.” After a short tale in verse in which the speaker is chased on horseback by outlaws into a cave where he is first captured by pirates and then rescued by a mermaid on his way to being rescued from cannibals by an eagle flying by, his allegedly factual autobiography finally concludes with the words “I DIED.”
Jimmy Jet
The table gets turned on Jimmy Jet in a most ironic way. His day spent watching the TV spans from “The Early Show” to “The, Late Late Show.” Over the course of the poem he transforms from a figurative couch potato into a literal television set and where he started out by spending all day watching TV, now he spends all day being the TV being watched.
