Incongruities: Two poems from US history

By Dorian Scott Cole

Copyright © 2005, Dorian Scott Cole

One of the interesting poems that circulated when I was a kid was the one that follows. I have no idea who the author is, and couldn't find out. I was intrigued by the poem, and immediately tried to emulate it in a theme assignment in school. The teacher read my passage about someone getting in a car and peddling away, followed by several more paragraphs of incongruous nonsense, and asked me the next day if I was OK. She just didn't get it.

Anyway, enjoy one of those strange poems from past US history.

Poem Name?

Author unknown

One dark night, in the middle of the day,
two dead boys got up to play.

back to back they faced each other;
drew their swords and shot each other.

If you don't believe this story,
ask the blind man; he saw it all.

Another poem, set in song, also has the element of incongruity, but instead of incongruous words, it has an incongruous melody. We may not know much about music, but we expect certain things of it. There is a pattern, and we expect the pattern to repeat. Just as we expect a poem, in rhymed verse, to rhyme all of the way through, similarly, we expect a melody to repeat its pattern. The following song is set to the tune, Clementine.

Poem Name?

Author unknown

I'm an onion, I'm an onion
I'm an onion 'til I die.

But I'd rather be an onion
than an orchid

- Scott

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