a special treat

                This will, hopefully, be worst piece you will read on here.

THE EVOLUTION OF A POEM

                If you read my “About Me” you will see reference to my first poem “The Dinosaur.” Along with it being the first poem I ever put to paper, it is also the only poem that I have memorized word for word.  Over the years it has changed with the central story line staying the same, so I have decided to share the first and most recent version with you.   Although it’s not my best poem I think it does a good job of illustrating how even a sub-par writer can excel (even if he can’t make his first poem spectacular). I hope you enjoy it.

THE DINOSAUR

Once there was a dinosaur,

A hundred feet tall or maybe more,

Twenty feet wide and striped all over,

Some people caught him and named him Rover,

Someone found him and gave him the key

And that someone was a little monkey,

For dinner they went to the monkeys house,

And guess what they had. A big fat mouse!

But they decided they weren’t starved,

So they had a turkey, it was carved

And the monkey went to his friend’s house,

And gave his friend the big fat mouse.

And his friend gave it to the dinosaur,

Who was a hundred feet tall or maybe more.

                You’ll notice that the previous poem is a bit clumsy and parts of it don’t make sense. Why did the monkey have to give him the key? Why’d they have a carved turkey, if they weren’t that hungry?  Also it is written in rhyming couplets, something I rarely do anymore (maybe I like to show off with four line stanzas).  As I got older the first thing I changed was his height, he is now “a thousand feet tall or maybe more” I didn’t take into account that 20 feet might make for a very skinny thousand feet tall dinosaur until this most recent version.  When I was a kid I thought feet were a big measurement.  The next thing I did was added another stanza (it will be italicized in the final version) and finally I made a small change to the turkey to get my message across a bit more clearly (that will also be italicized). And now for the official version of “The Dinosaur”

THE DINOSAUR.

Once there was a dinosaur,

A thousand feet tall or maybe more,

A ton of feet wide and striped all over,

Some people caught him and named him Rover.

When he was caught he went into a rage,

And so they locked him in a cage.

Someone found him and gave him the key

And that someone was a little monkey,

For dinner they went to the monkeys house,

And guess what they had. A big fat mouse!

But they decided they weren’t starved,

So they had a turkey, (out of wood it was carved)

Then the monkey went to his friend’s house,

And gave his friend the big fat mouse.

And his friend gave it to the dinosaur,

Who was a thousand feet tall or maybe more.

                If really I wanted to I’m sure I could make the poem better, but it would take A LOT of tweaking. I might even have to deconstruct it all together. I am currently satisfied with the final version, but If I ever get a book of poetry published I either won’t include this poem or it will be even more different.  (As a side note: My brother and I used to sleep in the same room and I would tell him stories or poems I made up on the spot [thanks for the idea Keith]., asking him for a topic This was one such poem and the only one that I remembered well enough to write the next morning.)