Narrative Poetry

The Ballad of the Monkey

by ewcwriter


It is some monkey business
going back a year or three
a matter whose like ‘twas unseen
in o’er a century.
When to Niagara a circus came,
escaped from that circus
a cunning and clever monkey
fled to Stamford Campus
He stoppeth by the office guidance
to make a timetable
and picked some courses from a list
of which he would be able.
Math, he thought, would be no fun
and science seemed such nonsense
‘twere monkeys enough in tech already
but in English he’d have a chance.
Devitt and Pierce, Baty and Martin
the choices they seemed rough,
but then he found a class in which
a monkey could pass unconscious
And that is how the monkey came
to be in Writer’s Craft.
He spent a week just watching all
and every day he laughed.
Never before had he heard such fuss
over such a little chore.
Some days he could not hear at all
when Char and Adam snored.
But the loudest sound of all by far
Nearly drove him out of his mind.
‘Twas the day when ballads were at hand
and my how those kids whined.
Well, not all, not quite there were a few
who thought poetry had merit
to separate the hearty from Hale,
the monkey’s from the ferrets.
The monkey knew, he knew he knew
a poem could be magic
and those who say "I can not"
are nothing less than tragic.
And so it was when report time came,
students ranked from best to worst
of all the students: boys and girls,
the monkey he was first!
It is some monkey business
going back a year or three
a matter whose like ‘twas unseen
in o’er a century.