Copyright © 1972,2001 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: August 16, 2002 .

The Redbreast Song

I got a glimpse of my first Robin-breast today

As it pecked leftovers of the wintry gray.

Its redbreast heaved against the wind as if to break

Its still whirling winter's wake

Of Kissinger and Chou En-lai

Who shifted the hemispheres awry.

As Robin sang above the wintry whine of March,

My flesh did to the marrow parch

Like a carouser to a pint of rye

Celebrating hemispheres no longer shy.

Robin peeped a plea that I lyricize its tune

So it might ring out till June,

The chosen time for lullaby,

When all that once was, goes by.

"No longer better dead than red,

But rather red than dead

[as this hemisphere stirred in dread]

Along with now and then a loaf of bread."

[and the east nodded its head]

Its tipsy tune I thought I read

From Kissinger and Chou En-lai

When they moved the hemispheres awry.

Flapping its wings, shaking the branch of China's elm

Perched proud in wooded realm─

While Milhouse and Mao under bough,

Discuss Lao-tzu and the Tao─

[and Hong Kong plunged with the Dow]

"Born," Robin chirped, "with plastic spoon isn't today;

Chopsticks are the proper way."

[and the Golden Arch drooped in dread]

Robin's tipsy tune I swore I read

In Kissinger and Chou En-lai

Nodding the hemispheres declassify.

"While surgeons round female eyes of Indo China,

We slant our daughters' even finer!"

Richard snickered; Mao, unsurpassed in vows:

[while the hemispheres lift their brows]

"No longer fly to Disney's realm of the Rat;

Fly Hangchow and hang your hat.

If you have capital to invest

Ping Pong tables are the best.

And Ted's Rangers will fly to RFK

Knowing I will toss out the ball on opening day."

[as the hemispheres by satellite cheer away]

Robin puffed its breast:

"Twenty-five years my ancestry has chirped this ineluctable song─

Why then did it take so long?"

[the hemispheres surely don't know why]

"Folks sight-see the Berlin Wall

While ignored stood the wonder of them all!"

And the hemispheres echoed laughter and released the pawl.

clips from Corel

China's Lullaby

O honey don't cry, why?

When I say goodbye.

I'm off to sing sweet China's lullaby.

Don't catch me in a lie.

When super sting of Staubach's sling

Sends the finless Dolphins sounding

Fans swing the scene and sing

Let's play ping-pong in Peking.

So honey, please don't cry

When I say goodbye

I'm off to sing sweet China's lullaby

And catch Kissinger in a lie

Planning secretly to end the war:

Declaring a freeze and then a thaw,

And when the pesky prisoner's wives' implore

He tells them not to worry anymore,

Then swings the scene to sing

Let's play ping-pong in Peking.

To get Dixie's vote the right cries "no busing."

If truckers they want, soothe Hoffa's fussing;

For the profiteers, get the market bustling,

And shame McGovern for his blunderbussing;

Then swing the scene and sing:

Let's play ping-pong in Peking.

Blacks don't riots no more;

They got a century or two before

They're cultured like us all

And a president ventures Harlem's wall.

So swing the scene and sing:

Let's play ping-pong in Peking.

The farm belt's at stake, then sacred is subsidy,

When the west to win, bend the dockers' knee;

Then with prime time personality

Win the world with Telstar

And glamorize Vietnam's scar.

Yeah, swing the scene and sing:

Let's play ping-pong in Peking.

O honey don't cry why

When I say goodbye

I'm off to sing sweet China's lullaby,

Another Nixon lie.

Clips from Imspace Systems Corp.