Rootabaga Poems

[Note from the Raggedy Man, who found them in a barrel:

These are not all one big long poem, except in the same way that all of life is one big long poem.   The only reason they’re all printed here  all jostling up together, is that our family is too poor to afford more paper.  Each single piece between the little stars, is its own individual special lone personal poem.  Some of them are social, but most of them would just as soon be left alone. 

So, they shouldn’t ought to be read  one after the other  in rapid pitter-patter succession   like wolfing down peas off a knife.  Rather, read one, then go off and do things for many years, and later, if you’re still alive, read another one; or not. 

Better yet – they should all be split up, and each one given  to people on different planets, each planet would have its own lone special poem.

So here we go.]

***

Look – It’s Bozo the Button Buster!

whistling softly, sadly smiling,

all amid a pile of busted buttons.

*

[A couple of hundred years pass – you get the idea.]

*

“No-one knows the secret of the Thimblefolk, save the silentminded sleepypeepered Muffin Man.”

-- Hmmpf.  Did a cat tell you that?  Don’t believe it.  Never believe a cat.

*

Sometimes the sun’s so sad and slanty

it sends rays right through the windows in my head

*

The barrow-boy Nice ‘n’ Tiny  is tiny & nice:  whence the name.

But he knows something he is not letting on,

and it furrows his forehead like rain.

*

[Remember – We’re on another planet, now…]

*

So where does a cat go when the sky snows? – That way.

And who does the time flow if the mind blows? – This one.

*

In their burrow,  bunnies cluster,

whispering rootabagastories.

*

So dark, so dark!  Yet, like the night,

the green moon  sheds its dreambeams.

*

Oh oh!  Oh no!  It’s the Sandwich Man!

He’s come to sell us his sandwiches!

Run, children, run run run run runrunrunrunrun.

*

How well I recall, when we were but young,

laughing on the lap of the Potato Face Blind Man.

How he used to tell lies and lies!

*

Do – oo – oo . . .   you know,

Who – oo – oo . . .   it is ?   ?    ?

- - -  I do !!

IT’S :    the Potato Face Blind Man, with a sack on his back,

come to sell brushes to our mother.

*

One day    a terrible  Thing  happened;

but then it went away.

& the next day   a

sun shone     and

flowers blooming   bunnies zooming

all the mushrooms  getting married

several simply  hedgehogs happy

ducks & rainbows   getting dizzy

mice and moonbeams    feeling sleepy …

(Say goodnight to One-Horse Pappy.

-- Shush – don’t talk – you’ll wake the baby.)

*

“No-ow, I’m as generous as the next man,” said

(thumbs hooked in his vest pockets  decorated with dollar signs)

the Evil, Grasping, Stingy Stinking Miser;

“But I draw the line   at handing a dime

to an orphan on the point of dying for lack of a donut.”