Poem of the Day - Part 60

Simple Simon

Simple Simon met a pieman
Going to the fair;

Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
Let me taste your ware.

Said the pieman to Simple Simon,
Show me first your penny;

Says Simple Simon to the pieman,
Indeed I have not any.

Simple Simon went a-fishing,

For to catch a whale;

All the water he had got

Was in his mother's pail.

(Above: Plate 30, nude man carrying bucket from Animal Locomotion by Eadweard Muybridge, 1887.)

Simple Simon went to look

If plums grew on a thistle;

He pricked his fingers very much,

Which made poor Simon whistle.

(Note: or maybe Simon whistled at seeing someone's prick.)

He went to catch a dicky bird

And thought he could not fail

Because he had a little salt

To put upon its tail.

(Note: In this photo, Simple Simon is Republican Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas.  Yes, this photo has been image-manipulated.  The Senator was holding a salt shaker, but he was not actually putting salt on a naked guy's butt.)

He went for water in a sieve

But soon it all fell through;

And now poor Simple Simon

Bids you all adieu!

(Above, not a sieve, but the same idea: a bucket race at the Nude Olympics in Adelaide, Australia where the buckets had holes in them.)