Friday, May 20, 2005

Friday Poetry Blogging: Hell in a Handbasket edition

It's Friday, and I'm grumpy. What with the Newsweek hoo-hah, the continuing evidence of our torture of prisoners, and the fact that I STILL haven't won the lottery, I've just about had it with this joint. So here's my favorite cranky poem/song. Tom Lehrer and Pete Seeger both do great versions.

The Merry Minuet, by Sheldon Harnick

They're rioting in Africa
They're starving in Spain
There's hurricanes in Florida
And Texas needs rain
the Whole world is festering with unhappy souls
The French hate the Germans, the Germans hate the Poles
Italians hate Yugoslavs, South Africans hate the Dutch
And I don't like Anybody very much.

But we can be tranquil and thankful and proud
For man's been endowed with a mushroom-shaped cloud
And we know for certain that some lucky day
Someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away

They're rioting in Africa
There's strife in Iran
What nature doesn't do to us
Will be done by our fellow Man