Mad Personal Assistant’s Song
(after a poem by Lewis Carroll)
He thought he saw a horse's ass,
A-buzz with little flies:
He looked again and found it was
Dick Cheney in disguise,
Wearing a Ronald Reagan mask
And eating Freedom Fries.
He thought he saw a woodpecker
Spontaneously combust:
He found it was the New York Times
All caked in blood and rust.
"This is the best and worst of Times,"
He theorized, nonplussed.
He thought he saw a pink giraffe
Constructed of balloons:
He looked again and saw some addicts
Heating silver spoons.
"What they need is a daily dose
Of castor oil and prunes!"
He thought he saw a cloud of locusts
Eat a field of roses:
He looked again and saw a man
The Surgeon General knows is
Carrying a resistant strain
Of rare tuberculosis.
He thought he saw a monkey who was
Sucking on a cod.
But no, 'twas Paris Hilton having
Sex on his I-Pod.
He said, "That is, like so mature.
I mean, like, OHMYGOD!!"
He thought he saw a dragonfly
Big as a hippogriff:
He looked again, it was a Beamer
Falling off a cliff.
It's better to live poor, he thought,
Than be a lucky stiff.
He thought he saw a flock of sparrows
Pecking at bread crumbs:
He looked again, it was a bunch
Of unwashed railroad bums
"The wealthy laid low by their health
Insurance premiums!"
He thought he saw a humpback whale
Leap clear out of the sea.
In fact, it was Will Shakespeare's
So-called "Scottish Tragedy".
"At last, he said, "I understand our
Foreign policy!"
He thought he saw a bulldog chewing
Holes in my left shoe:
He looked again, it was Bob Dylan
Playing didgeridoo,
A hummy, wah-wah, hoo-ah hoo-ah
"Tangled Up In Blue."
He thought he saw the living dead
Burst forth from out their tombs:
He looked again, it was the prisons
Adding extra rooms.
"The future's bleak," he said, "yet still and still
The teeming wombs."
He thought he saw a three-toed sloth
A-quacking like a duck
Instead, it was Charles Simic
Selling poems for a buck.
"If it has come to this, then boys
We are shit-out-of-luck."
Sent as a joke to The League of American Poets
