Editorial note: you can hear Papa Possum read his verse here. –Ed
Some angry creatures gathered once
with grievances in mind
On how they felt society
conspired against their kind.
We’ll call them “fish” since that themselves
they once did call in claim,
Although it’s certain that you know
them by another name.
Inside a bowl, upon a shelf,
in a department store,
They reinforced their discontent,
and shunned outside rapport,
Renounced the Strengths they could have played,
chose pessimism’s pull:
“Our bowl, it is half empty! Don’t
dare say it is half full!”
With anger they topped off their bowl,
each echoed Marx’s name.
Not one fish thought to look toward self,
but sought something to blame.
Each clenched right fin into a fist,
and thrust it toward the air,
Then swam in circles leftward…
never getting anywhere.
Across the aisle, in Games and Sports,
were bicycles displayed.
Each built for action, work, or speed;
the fuming fish surveyed
And through their fish-eye view assumed
each bike of dark ideals,
“All bikes were built for just one thing:
crush us beneath their wheels!”
The bikes were taken quite aback,
sought to this fear relieve.
But the fish rallied, fist fins high,
with “Swim left and believe!”
The fish bowl boiled over and
splashed water everywhere
And when, at last, the rage died down,
no bike was standing there.
The bikes had moved to aisle far
from undeserv’ed rage,
Then lived their lives as each thought best;
the fish stayed in their cage.
So, here the story ends and if
a moral’s what you wish…
Then, “men need marxist feminists
like bicycles need fish.”
