A song is now available for this poem on the Internet Archive!
The Skeleton of Peter the Dwarf
It's hard to be a hydrocephalic.
54 inches, head to toe.
(27 from my chin to scalp alone;
that makes me a marvel.)
Washington came to see me
(the man, not the city; or, maybe, the city is the man).
He looked at me, marveled at me;
I answered with inactivity.
I floated along, day to day,
endlessly rocking,
loving Jesus and preacher's conversation,
swelling with pride at the show I could provide.
It was hard for me to move,
my head being so huge,
but I got by without going out;
keeping to the cerebral.
My head's got its own box now,
it's lost all its water!
And now they say my skull is a marvel!
but they say nothing of the parts of me everyone's had.
What I never told in my time
was that, more than theology or phrenology,
all I ever wanted out of life
was to not shit in my cradle.
A tiny outhouse with plenty of headroom,
straps to hold me up and a stand
from which I could read
my Bible or a dirty magazine.
Oh that would be marvelous.
"A marvel indeed," they would say,
as they tied me in and
sang of my tenacity.
gbs 9-22-06, revised 9-25-06 with kmc
6 comments:
So, I just threw out the end and tried again. I think this works a little better. I've already said they cut up his body, so why do it again? We can end with him alive, and stuck as a freak show no matter what he does...
this is better - it seems to have settled into its own.
good job linking it up on the main listing page, too - i had no idea you had such technical savvy.
kmc
My technical savvy is equalled only by one thing: my roast beef.
...and now the in-jokes have officially killed the viability of this forum.
thank you, and good night.
kmc
I disagree; punchlines, without jokes, as we've discussed, are quite funny.
I love this: L-U-V.
I have begun reading Paterson, (from the middle) and understand why you feel so inspired. I particularly liked the first two paragraphs of Book Three, Chapter III. Somehow it seemed related to what you are pulling off, so well, here.
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