Trading Fours with Roethke

Famous People I've Known - writer Ed Mcclanahan and singer Gail Wynters.
photo by Danny O'Bryan

The Serpent

There was a Serpent who had to sing
There was. There was.
He simply gave up Serpenting.
Because, Because.

He didn't like his Kind of Life;
He couldn't fined a proper Wife;
He was a Serpent with a soul;
He got no Pleasure down his Hole.
And so, of course, he had to Sing,
And sing he did, like Anything!
The Birds, they were, they were Astounded;
And various Measures Propounded
To stop the Serpent's Awful Racket:
They bought a Drum. He wouldn't Whack it.
They sent,-you always send,-to Cuba
And got a Most Commodious Tuba;
They got a Horn, they got a Flute,
But Nothing would suit.
He said, "Look, Birds, all this is futile:
I do not like to Band or Tootle."
And then he cut loose with a Horrible Note
That practically split the Top of his Throat.
"You see," he said with a Serpent's Leer,
"I'm Serious about my Singing Career!"
And the Woods Resounded with a many a Shriek
As the Birds flew off to the End of Next Week.

Theodore Roethke

War between the sexes

It all started when the first man
Wept over the first woman
Cried in his beer because
She wouldn't return his
Love-sickness,
Took it as an
Affront to his
Manhood. "She's a stuck up
Bitch," he says to his
Buddy's in the bar
As he looks over his
Shoulder at a fine
Young blond
Another potential
Heart-breaker.

Danny O'Bryan