Playgrounds
John Jessup Kennan 1953 (Pomona)
There's a baboon down in Africa
Kidnaps babies from their beds
With razor tipped fangs, like pop tops
Snaps open their little heads
Eats their tiny little brains out
With his little monkey mitts
Just Purina Monkey Chow to him
In the treetop where he sits
Like eating popcorn from a dish
Baboon in a treetop watching the show
The panicked, manic and frantic
Scramble around on the ground below
Now baby brains course through his veins
Flavor to savor, nature's taste
Discards the body, quite amused
Their feelings, extraneous waste
No self-colored iconoclast
If I'm quirky, it's design
God pulls out the Big Crayon
And bleeds outside the lines
Abandon all hope who enter
The jungle behind that face
It's a very wild Creation
The mind behind the human race
Passed around like party hors d'oeuvres
Teriyaki, ranch and toothpicks
We're eating each other's brains out
Dipping into each other's wits
Nature's a very strange playground
Caution where you wander outdoors
Your dreams and schemes might just wind up
Anaconda poop on a jungle floor
Just snake poop, and nothing more
No self-colored iconoclast
If I'm quirky, it's design
God pulls out the Big Crayon
And bleeds outside the lines
© John Kennan 7-25-15
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Submitted by rankstranger7 on May 24, 2021
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 1:05 min read
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Quick analysis:
Scheme | xaxabcxc xdxdxexe FGHI xjkjxxbc xxxll FGHI k |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 1,187 |
Words | 205 |
Stanzas | 7 |
Stanza Lengths | 8, 8, 4, 8, 5, 4, 1 |
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"Playgrounds" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 10 Jun 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/100756/playgrounds>.
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