A Ballad of Annie Oakley

August thirteenth, AD 1860

A sweet baby girl, Phoebe Ann Mosey

Born on a farm in Darke County, Ohio

Eight children, two bedrooms, a farmhouse quite cozy

By age seven Annie hunted to help bring in money

This child was a natural with her firearm

Taking her kill to the general store dealer

Eight years, she’d paid off the mortgage on the farm

Spring Eighty-One, to the south in Cincinnati

Marksman Frank Butler arrived with his act

He bet fifty dollars with hotelman Jack Frost

“I’ll beat any shooter, and that, Sir’s, a fact!”

Jack Frost and Frank Butler rode up to Darke County

To Frank’s amazement, a five-foot female

His opponent in shooting live birds 

They took turns, each targeting twenty-five quail

Twenty-four rounds and the two were dead even  

Neither marksman had missed even one single shot

On his twenty-fifth bird, Frank made his sole error 

And Annie then won the whole fifty-dollar pot

Frank later admitted, “She took me fair and square”

Head over heels, he thought Annie so dear  

Adoring his poodle, she gave Frank a chance

The stars were aligned, they were wed in one year

They moved to Cincinnati, found a house in Oakley

That’s where Annie obtained her famous stage name

She joined Frank’s act in Over-the-Rhine

The start of her journey to world-wide fame

Several years later, Frank and Annie moved on

Joining Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild West Show

Seventeen years, North America and Europe

Queen Victoria, the Kaiser, and King Umberto

Annie’s marksmanship was other-worldly

She shot dimes and playing cards tossed in the air

Hit targets behind her while looking in a mirror

Snuffed a burning candle and put out its glare

Annie Oakley left the show in Nineteen-O-Two         

She fought for women’s rights, for daughters and sons        

Gave money to orphanages and charities

Taught fifteen thousand women how best to use guns

Annie died in Darke County at age sixty-six 

Pernicious anemia, that was her lot

Frank stopped eating food, died eighteen days later

Darke County, still together in their family plot

Clark Kent on the Analyst's Couch

My life, such a tragic beginning

When Krypton was blasted to bits 

My father sent me off in a rocket ship,  

My whole race then perished in the blitz 

I was rescued in a wheat field in Kansas

By Martha and Jonathan Kent

They adopted me as their only child

And taught me what rightfulness meant

By age three I’d discovered my powers

I could toss a cow up in the air 

The Kents were completely astonished

Though my strength also made them beware  

They trained me to hide my abilities

Masquerading as a plain Kansas youth 

My destiny, they explained, was to aid humankind

As the guardian of justice and truth 

In adulthood I lead two disparate lives

I’m Clark Kent for most of the day 

Earnest reporter at the Daily Planet 

I seek facts and sniff out foul play 

“Clark Kent”, as you know, is simply a front

He’s the human I claim that I am

Mild-mannered, gentle, ungainly

Convincing even though Clark’s a sham 

My real self earthlings call Superman

I switch to my costume in a crisis 

As the Man of Steel, I fight doers of evil

The murderers, the crooks, and now Isis 

I can lift up a trolley with just one hand

Race faster than a speeding train

Machine gun bullets bounce off  of my chest

Children think I’m a bird or a plane 

To keep my identity secret

There’s no one to whom I get close

As Clark, I lead a most lonely life 

My true self I never disclose

I constantly worry they’ll see through Clark Kent

My disguise, just a blue suit and glasses 

Superman and Clark are identical twins

Just one slip, I’d be known to the masses  

As Superman, I’m still more lonesome than Clark

I fight every battle on my own

I have no peers and no intimates

Disaster and violence are all that I’ve known

I do have a soft spot for Lois Lane

I’m enamored of her spirit and beauty 

But I never show Lois my feelings

Love’s sadly not part of my duty

That’s the whole of my life, dear Dr. Freud

All the burdens of a dual personality

Both of my selves are estranged from the world 

My sole wish — just one speck of normality 

Marie Laveau, New Orleans Voodoo Queen

Marie Laveau was the Voodoo Queen

Untold thousands were helped by her magic

She offered cures, prosperity, and hope

To lives that were oftentimes tragic

This infant was born in the Vieux Carré 

September ten, 1801

A native Creole by birth

Her gifts were to shine in the sun

        

Her father was a plantation owner

Her mother, Marguerite, a free black

Marie was at first a hairdresser

But luring rich clients proved her knack

She learned to do voodoo from Doctor John

Mixing African and Catholic rites

Marie reached the spirits through music and dance

Rich and poor, women, men, blacks and whites

Marie had a snake she named Zombi

Voodoo rituals at Congo Square

She sold gris-gris and charms and amulets

And was known to arrange an affair

A Frenchman named Louis was her partner

Marie had fifteen children in all

One daughter was later a voodoo queen

But most died before they could crawl

Marie saw her clients at Maison Blanche

They often were wealthy white men

She offered them stunning black lovers

Who were housed in a French Quarter den

Many do view Marie Laveau as a saint

Faith healer, a midwife, a nurse

She ministered to convicts condemned to death row

Helped them ward off a hex or a curse

Marie’s home still stands on Saint Anne Street

She died there in June eighty-one

When buried in Saint Louis Cemetery 

Her life after death had begun

An Ode to Superman

When I was a kid of seven or eight

Comic books were my life passion

Superman stood at the top of the list

He rescued the world in fine fashion

Superman was born on Krypton

Kal-El was his name at birth

With Krypton facing destruction

A rocket ship brought him to Earth 

The baby was found in a Kansas field

By Martha and Jonathan Kent 

They named their miracle Clark 

Not knowing what rearing him meant 

Clark Kent grew up a reporter

In Metropolis for the Daily Planet

Mild-mannered, even timid and shy

He actually had muscles of granite

Clark Kent, in disguise, was Superman

He had such astonishing power

He could lift up a train or a semi truck

Or fly off to Mars in an hour

He also had X-ray vision 

He heard whispers from miles away 

Machine gun bullets bounced off his chest 

He could rebuild Hoover Dam in a day

Lois Lane was Clark’s fellow reporter

She loved and adored Superman

She had no inkling that he was Clark Kent

Clark, she thought — just a flash in the pan

Superman fought evil and injustice

Gangsters and Nazis and thugs

He saved the lives of the innocent

And conquered bad dealers of drugs

This hero had many arch-enemies

Brainiac, Bizarro, General Zod 

The most fearsome of all was Lex Luthor 

A billionaire known for his fraud

Kryptonite was Superman’s frailty

One dose, he’d be nauseous and weak

This debris had travelled from Krypton

That’s why it made Superman meek

Superman never murdered the villains

It’s because he was noble and good

He strove to make Earth a better place

And showed us that all of us could

There was much that we learned from Superman

He gave us a model for living

I know we’ll never be as super as he

But we can be more brave and more giving

The Ballad of Paul Bunyan, U.P. Lumberjack

The most famous figure in my home town

Was Paul Bunyan, the great lumberjack

He dug the Menominee River

He could level ten pines with one whack

Paul Bunyan was born in Menominee County

He weighed over one hundred pounds 

It took five storks to deliver him

Six wet-nurses made daily rounds

Each time baby Paul rolled over in his sleep

He would flatten an acre of trees

His parents built a raft on Lake Michigan

But Milwaukee would flood when he’d sneeze

As a child Paul Bunyan was not only strong

He was faster than a lightning arc

He could turn off his light and leap into bed

Before his room even got dark

Paul found a blue ox in a snowdrift

Took him home and young Babe grew so fast

A crow took an hour to fly twixt Babe’s horns

When he burped, mountains crumbled from the blast

Babe could pull anything Paul wanted

For example, their crooked logging road

Babe pulled on that road till it straightened out

And that new road carried ten times the load

Babe was in need of a watering hole

Paul Bunyan dug one with his axe

Today it’s the Lake called Superior

Pictured Rocks were formed by Babe’s tracks

Paul and Babe took a hike through Minnesota

Their footprints in the earth were so big

Those depressions became the 10,000 lakes

And Babe drank them up in one swig

A log jam blocked the Menominee River

Paul poked Babe’s rear end with a spear

Babe swished his tail and broke up the jam 

And that river stayed clear for a year

The axe men in Paul’s camp were eight feet tall

And each had the same name of Sven

When Paul called “Sven” the whole crew came running

Dragging sled-loads of logs from the glen

Sourdough Sam made pancakes at their camp 

His griddle covered thirteen full acres

Twenty-five men with bacon on their feet

Greased that griddle to help out the bakers

Paul Bunyan enjoyed a pipe after dinner

And he blew his smoke far away

It floated westward over the hills

Creating the smog in L.A.  

The winter of ’07 was so brutally cold

The axe men’s words froze in mid-air 

Those words remained frozen until the spring thaw

Then they heard melting chatter everywhere

No one is certain where Paul is today

Some think he is at the North Pole

They say he returns to the U.P. each May

Bringing Babe for a leisurely stroll