When I came home last night at three
The man was waiting there for me
But when I looked around the hall
I couldn’t see him there at all!
Go away, go away, don’t you come back any more!
Go away, go away, and please don’t slam the door... (slam!)
Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn’t there
He wasn’t there again today
Oh, how I wish he’d go away...
Antigonish [I met a man who wasn’t there] - Hughes Mearns
One Fine Day
Ladies and gentlemen, skinny and stout,
I will tell you a story I know nothing about.
Admission is free, so pay at the door.
Pull up a chair and sit on the floor.
One fine day in the middle of the night,
Two dead boys got up to fight.
Back to back, they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other.
A blind man came to watch fair play.
A mute man came to shout “Hurray!”
A deaf policeman heard the noise,
And came and killed the two dead boys.
(He lived on the corner in the middle of the block,
In a two-story house on a vacant lot.)
A guy with no legs came walking by
And kicked the policeman on his thigh.
He crashed through a wall without a sound
Into a dry ditch where he promptly drowned.
A long black hearse came and carted him away,
So he ran for his life and is still gone today.
I watched from the corner of a big round table,
The only eyewitness to the facts of my fable.
And if you don’t believe my lies are true,
Ask the blind man; he saw it, too.
* * *