Lawrence Hall
Dispatches for the Colonial Office
LogoSophia Magazine – A Pilgrim's Journal of Life, Literature and Love
The Great Riding Lawnmower Chase
A Song of My People
In the dust beside the highway
Wide ol’ Texas four-lane highway
Ran a fat man in his anger
In his white shorts, in his anger
To another man just like him
Mower-mounted on a lawn
On a John Deere painted green
But this was not a peaceful scene
Like angry Pillsbury Doughboys
Or like dropouts from a Sumo school
They grappled in the roadside dust
In fleshy fury (not in lust)
The mower-man finally thought it best
To steer his steed into the west
Across the highway, a running fight
Dodging traffic in the morning light
The foot-man circled, the mower-man turned
The shrieking brakes of a big truck burned
Combat resumed in the turning lane
Beeps and honks again and again
I never saw the end of this chase
Who won the day, who won the race
Of if by the beginning of the next day’s dawn
Someone had finished mowing that lawn
In this I played with the Longfellow / Hiawatha meter, which is far more appropriate for serious long poetry, not a short frivolity. Longfellow sent me a note from the beyond advising me not to do this again.
