Note – In the fight against oligarchy, this poem is subversive, not because it is polemic, but because it isn’t. Oligarchy thrives on division. The strongest tool we have against oppression is our shared humanity. If you can read this poem, which includes a nod toward Elizabethan writer Thomas Dekker’s “The Merry Month of May,” without wondering whether your tribe, political party, would approve of you enjoying it, or even not enjoying it, you have engaged in an act of healthy rebellion.
Spring Fever
My girl, she wears glasses and dabbles in molasses; Hatless, she makes passes at the boys who pass her way. Still, my anger lapses at this loveliest of lasses, On the merry month of May. Spring is like a fever that makes me want to seize her, Warmly squeeze her and please her, then lay her on the hay; Instead, she shows me a freezer and her lazy old retriever, On the merry month of May. My love ain’t no saint, with manners oh so quaint; She tried to paint, made her mother faint, headlong into clay; Tinged by this wicked taint, her sister lost all constraint, On the merry month of May. I’ve heard my sweetheart cry to a Brahm’s lullaby, “I’ll surely lie on the day I die, till then I’ve got little to say,” Then walk away with a heavy sigh, nibbling a piece of pie, On the merry month of May. Sally badly wants me, like a flower needs a bee, She’ll wed me or bed me, take me any old way I say; Although she is quite easy, she seems a bit too breezy, On the merry month of May. So, I gave Sally a shove and turned to my darling dove, Who from above, wearing a glove, sprayed chardonnay; Thence may equal thereof, but nothing matches my love, On the merry month of May.