Sunday, April 05, 2015

SING A SONG O' MIKE PENCE, A CHILDISH SONG AND DANCE

by D. Brian Craig




Song:
Sing a song of Mike Pence
he claims it's our mistake
to read into this Hoosier law
more than wedding cake.


Dance:
But Governor, yes or no,
will the law allow discrimination?
Could you make this about something else?
May I ask you seven more times?


Origins, Meaning, and Interpretation:
Some infer in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night
a prognostication wherein Belch (no accident that) 
tells a clown (nor in that):
"Come on; there is Mike Pence for you: let's have a song."
Some, however, find the name a corruption, or at the very least
too great a price to pay. On this not all folios agree.

Other scholars find parallels in the 21st-century social amusement 
of placing live politicians on a hot plate, 
as a form of entremet (something to be enjoyed between 
servings of cute animal videos).
The recipe most often called for birds
of a uniform feather to be locked in an oven,
or statehouse, from which they would, after a time,
poke their heads out half-baked;
an uproar would ensue, after which they would be returned,
only to emerge finally
singing a different tune
to the great amusement and delight of the electorate.

No corroborative evidence supports either of the above,
though the earliest tradition, in one stanza,
clearly mentions Naughty Boys
from whom little is heard of afterward.


D. Brian Craig is a scientist, engineer, and writer, though not always in that order, nor separately. His writing has appeared most recently in The Pitkin Review and FEBS Letters.