Once upon a day so cheery
while I spoke with friends held dearly
o’er libations cold and beery
pond’ring strange things we had seen,
suddenly we saw a couple
walking down Van Buren snuggling,
window shopping, though not bustling,
around the Square pristine,
All at once we four did notice,
as if life were out of focus,
something strange, perhaps verboten,
wond’ring, “Halloween?”
Our calendars we all were checking,
weighed them and we found them lacking.
‘Twas July 6 and we were baking
hot and melting prometheens.
We all took a closer lookie,
confirmed that it was not a Wookie,
or a monster known as Cookie
this spry thing so lean.
We watched and watched with jaws a’ slacking,
fin’ly at each other cackling
at this sight that was so baffling.
We hooted and we screamed!
Never in a month of Sundays
did any of us think that one day
we’d behold a thing more shocking,
than this thing we had seen.
People on the streets were staring,
some of them perplexed and glaring.
Most were dumbstruck at this pairing,
but little children beamed.
We often scoff at things not common,
things long gone and oft forgotten,
like red, red robins bob bob bobbin’
they walk right past, unseen.
Once I had three aunts named Myrtle.
One died from a too tight girdle,
a second failed to clear a hurdle,
the third drowned in ice cream.
A table mate said she’d once scuffled
with a man with white shirt ruffled.
She said she beat him with her bustle,
the whale bones unforeseen.
Another said she’d shot her mother,
father, sister, and her brother.
She wished to do that to her lover
but he had split the scene.
The fourth just sat and cussed and cussed
about a man who squeezed her bust.
She left the intruder in the dust
with her very sharpened knees.
Now you’ve heard about the somethings
seen by we four Oxford bumkins.
I hope you know that we weren’t bluffin’.
We had all come clean.
But what we’d all seen on that day
left our minds in disarray
causing all to pause and say,
“Of this we’ll always sing”.
A monkey clung to a woman’s back,
but that’s not what took us aback.
It was the diaper that had wrapped
his butt and ding-a-ling.
I’ve seen many a strange, strange thing
like Summer snow and blazing Springs,
but the oddest thing I’ve ever seen
was a diapered monkey shop shop ing.
I made a vow upon that day:
no more watching Planet of the Apes.
Manifesting diapered primates
Was simply not my thing.
Now you’ve read my story true.
Eyes wide open so that you
won’t be bumfuzzled at The View
from The Balcony.
If you spy a diapered primate,
drunken students, impaired band mates.
Chalk it up to stuff you may see
in your View from The Balcony.
Randy Weeks is a Licensed Professional Counselor, a Certified Shamanic Life Coach, an ordained minister, a singer-songwriter, an actor, and a writer. He may have watched too many versions of The Planet of the Apes. Randy may be reached swinging through the vines through Faulkner’s Woods or at: randallsweeks@gmail.com.
