Walt Kelly—creator of the comic strip "Pogo", and language-tinkerer extraordinaire. I nominate "Don't Sugar Me".
Oh I may be your dish of tea
But honey don't you sugar me
Don't stir me boy, or try to spoon!
Don't sugar me, cause us is throon!― Tracer Hand, Thursday, 12 July 2001 00:00 (twenty-three years ago) link
five years pass...
My favorite might be:
Oh, Mamie minded Mama
till one day in Singapore,
A sailor man from Turkestan
came knockin' at the door.
Mamie grabbed a hammer
and a bucketful of-
And here Churchy walks through Albert and Beauregard's mental checker game, and sets the Thinking Contest in motion.
I love a lot of his more pensive songs/poems as well. Especially To The Princess Margaret Rose, which shows up in one of the Sunday books, and never seems to get mentioned:
The last photograph and a half of you,
Over four million miles of sea,
Broke a heart already unsteady
Over six million miles of sea.
We've suffered,
We've suffered much with you,
Over nine million miles of sea (more or less)
None the less we are ready
Over ten million miles of sea.
With the old and the new
And the borrowed and blue
Over twelve million miles of sea,
We'd give up the throne
(Had we one of our own)
And invite the family to tea.
But what would we do with the children?
And what would we do with the sea?
We'd really no notion
There was so much Ocean.
Love and kisses, the Mrs. and me.
This is accompanied by these heartbreaking drawings of a sad and middle-aged Beauregard.
― clotpoll (Clotpoll), Friday, 13 October 2006 04:50 (eighteen years ago) link
the "songs of the pogo" album is really good (includes most of the above in various forms, tho not margaret rose). aside from those i like a song for not now:
a song for not now
you need not put stay
a time for the was
can be sung for today
the notes for the does-not
will sound as the does
today you can sing
for the will-be that was
― gypsy mothra (gypsy mothra), Friday, 13 October 2006 06:01 (eighteen years ago) link