When I was a kid, I learned a poem that was, to me, pure genius. I vaguely remember repeating it every day, several times a day, when I was in third or fourth grade. Then, one day, I stopped repeating it. It had grown old, overused, and was no longer witty to me. Or, perhaps, I simply outgrew it.
Yesterday, as I was driving my nephews to school, the poem suddenly popped into my mind. I don’t know what triggered the memory, but suddenly I was taken back to my days as a school kid and that poem. I found myself repeating the poem out loud, much to the delight of my nephews, who had never heard it before. It goes something like this:
One bright morning in the middle of the night
two dead boys rose up to fight
Back to back they faced each other
drew their swords and shot each other
A deaf policeman heard the noise
and came and killed those two dead boys
If you don’t believe this lie is true
ask the blind man, he saw it too!
I loved that poem when I was a kid, and I found a certain joy in suddenly remembering it and passing it on to the new generation. I did some research today and realized that I learned a bastardized version of the original poem.
Silly, I know, but it’s a clever poem, and I loved it as a kid. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did (and still do!)
I learned this poem from my Father when I was a small child (mid ’50’s). I was taught that it went like this:
One bright morning in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight.
One was blind and the other couldn’t see
And the Devil was the referee.
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other.
When the deaf policeman heard the noise,
He came to kill the two dead boys.