Today I started going through the detritus that has amassed at the 6 years I have been working at my job, throwing away a lot and packing the seemingly useful in a box until the box filled up and I brought it home. Among the many papers was a poem that I wrote a while back as a tribute to the cat of my childhood who was at the time of its writing an old kitty who refused in a disgruntled, impossible-to-please way to eat anything my parents gave him. This snoot is now gone, but never forgotten.
Since Tam and I have been discussing how fun it would be if the poetry exam for her (absolute joke of a) freshman level online English class required that the student write a poem of their own, and since Tam suggested today that the poem should have to follow some particular style, and because a co-worker of hers today said that she didn't understand what the word "parody" meant when Tam used it in casual conversation, I present to you my submission to the Tam and Sally version of this English exam: "Tiger!" written in the style of William Blake's "The Tyger" from Songs of Experience, 1794.
Tiger! Tiger! meowing right
Through the middle of the night.
What awakened hand or paw
Could feed thy restless, squalling maw?
In what distant hut or bower
Lies the stuff you would devour?
On what dinner would you feed?
What the meat, would meet the need?
And what breakfast, & what lunch
Could twist thy mouth to stop and munch?
And when thy jaws begin to chew,
Is it sirloin or is it stew?
Is it tuna, is it cheese
That thy fussing would appease?
Is it zebra, is there hope
That you would eat an antelope?
When the stars fade in the sky,
And you turn down a chicken thigh,
Does He smile, this mess to see?
Did He who made the Dog make thee?
Tiger! Tiger! meowing right
Through the middle of the night.
What awakened hand or paw
Could feed thy restless, squalling maw?
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