Modern Nursery Rhymes

A few year's ago, I had fun experimenting with nursery rhymes in my free time. After all, I wondered, why have we cannonized only few from England in the 17th and 18th Centuries? The English language is no less fun and interesting now than it was then, and we have even more great subjects to write about. So, for better or worse, here are a few of those experiments. Please read them out loud to your children before bed for the sound morals they convey:


Zoe was busy
Zoe was smart
each day was filled
with soccer and art
Latin jujitsu
then what does she do?
Yoga and calculus
all at age two


9-1-1
let’s have a little fun
when Mommy’s away
such games we will play
with 9-1-1!


Oh, what a shame!
the video game
we played it from dusk until dawn
our eyes turned red
we longed for bed
but we still played on and on


spit shined shoe:
one for a dollar
two for two
conquer the world
in a spit shined shoe


Never mind the bedbugs
why, they wouldn’t hurt a flea
and–what’s more–they’re something that
you’ll never have to see
those bedbugs, they’re so friendly
so courteous and kind
they only creep out late at night
to bite your soft behind
they creep from corners dark and deep
on tiny tiny tiny feet
and suck your blood til morning bright
or somebody turns on the light
So go ahead! Your mom won’t mind
turn on the lights, pull up the blinds
They cannot get you, creepy creep
if you never fall asleep


The dentist waits
with bitey bits
for you to come
and sit sit sits
Don’t worry, son,
it’s just a prick
it only hurts a tiny bit
a pinch, a sting,
then nothing more
and you’ll get ice cream
at the store ...
Oh, the lies
these parents tell
in point of fact:
it hurts like Hell

(Photo courtesy of try-whistling-this on Flickr; available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/trywhistlingthis/2823412663/; original by Harry Whittier Frees in “The Little Kitten’s Nursery Rhymes,” Rand McNally 1941.)