New Amsterdam

You’re sending me tulips mistaken for lilies
You give me your lip after punching me silly
You turned my head till it rolled down the brain drain
If I had any sense now I wouldn’t want it back again

New Amsterdam it’s become much too much
Till I have the possession of everything she touches
Till I step on the brakes to get out of her clutches
Till I speak double dutch to a real double duchess…

Down on the mainspring, listen to the tick tock
Clock all the faces that move in on your block
Twice shy and dog tired because you’ve been bitten
Everything you say now sounds like it was ghost-written

Chorus

Back in London they’ll take you to heart after a little while
Though I look right at home I still feel like an exile

Somehow I found myself down at the dockside
Thinking of the old days of Liverpool and Rotherhide
The transparent people who live on the other side
Living a life that is almost like suicide

Lyrics: Elvis Costello (1980)

write your own poem that emulates schoolyard songs –
something to snap, clap, and jump around to.

Something in today’s prompt stirred primordial regions of my 5th grade soul. We really did recite these things when no teachers were around, I swear it’s true. This dredged up things better left forgotten…. but I did not compose these O.K? They were floating around schoolyards in the 1970’s. I am merely repeating them years later.

Miss Lucy had a steamboat
The steamboat had a bell;
Miss Lucy went to heaven
but the steamboat went to
Hello operator,
Give me number nine
And if you disconnect me
I’ll kick your fat
Behind the ‘frigerator
There was a piece of glass…
Miss Lucy sat upon it
And it cut her little
Ask me no more questions,
I’ll tell you no more lies.
The boys are in the girls’ room
Zipping up their
Flies can be a nuisance
Flies can be a pest
This rhyme is best forgotten
But the next one is the best!

      ( ♩♪♫ cue up banjo music ♩♬)

I’ll tell you of the story of a man named Jed;
Grabbed Ellie-May and he threw her on the bed.
Down went the zipper, out came a worm
And out of the worm come a bubblin’ sperm…

(Sperm that is: white gold… 42nd street tea)

She kicked and she farted and she fell on the floor;
The gas from her ass blew the hinges off the door.
The moon shone bright on the nipple of her tit
As she carved her name in prairie shit…

(Sung by the whore-house quartet—
Do you have a boner? Not yet—
Do you want one?  YOU BET!)

Battle Hymn of the 70’s Playground

Glory glory hallelujah—
Teacher hit me with a rulah;
Met her in the attic with a semi-automatic
and the teacher aint teaching no more.

There is more where this came from,
but as a sanctified Christian I must refrain from further infantile carnality and filth.

P.S.   if you want better poetry than this, go look at my previous NaPoWriMo attempts…

I am dragging very low this year.