Poetry Friday: Twist and Shout

I love a little twist on an old favorite. I loved when the guys in Run-D.M.C. made Aerosmith's Walk This Way their own. I loved when the Beatles gave a nod to the Beach Boys in Back in the U.S.S.R. And I loved that Franklin Pierce Adams was so inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson that he came up with this. It makes me want to shout.

A New York Child’s Garden of Verses

by Franklin Pierce Adams

(With the usual.)

       I

In winter I get up at night,

And dress by an electric light.

In summer, autumn, ay, and spring,

I have to do the self-same thing.

I have to go to bed and hear

Pianos pounding in my ear,

And hear the janitor cavort

With garbage cans within the court.

And does it not seem hard to you

That I should have these things to do?

Is it not hard for us Manhat-

Tan children in a stuffy flat?

       II

It is very nice to think

The world is full of food and drink;

But, oh, my father says to me

They cost all of his salaree.

       III

When I am grown to man’s estate

I shall be very proud and great;

E’en now I have no reverence,

’Cause I read comic supplements.

       IV

New York is so full of a number of kids

I’m sure pretty soon we shall be invalids.

       V

A child should always say what’s true,

And speak when he is spoken to;

And then, when manhood’s age he strikes,

He may be boorish as he likes.

 

Poetry Friday is being hosted by Mary Ann Scheuer at Great Kid Books. See you there!