Sunday, October 24, 2010

Humpty Dumpty





Humpty Dumpty
by Sidik Fofana

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall 
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty back together again

WHY? 'cause he had NO health care
Living in the slums, mom on welfare
While he's drinking quarter waters on a project stare
Trying to overcome the man and his own despair.

He quit school, got a job at the yard
With a hard hat on, moving dozens of logs
It was only part time, but he was supporting his mom
Even though he was worked like a warthog.

One day, they had him paving bricks on a building wall
He had a slip, took a trip, and had a little fall
He cracked his skull, his spine is misaligned,
He's having migraines and his vision's off.

What transpired next was a series of events
Humpty had a huge bill of which he couldn't pay a cent
He couldn't go to work, so he couldn't pay the rent
All because the man got sick.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty back together again.

"But I'm only part time!
I got a migraine plus a misaligned spine"
His boy said, "Yo, you better take the M5
And go down to the clinic and wait in line."

So Humpty planned a visit to go down to the clinic
But when he got in it, it was less than exquisite
Everybody was in pain, everybody needed stitches
They waited several hours, but only seen a couple minutes.

The doc finally called Humpty to the back
But before he touched a thing, he had him filling out an app
Had him writing all these things about his medical past
Explaining the pre-existing hump that he had on his back.

The doc said, "If you're hurt and you need an anesthetic
You're gonna have to tell us if your old or diabetic
Plus, if you want a good medic, you're gonna need good credit
Especially for prosthetics because those are cosmetic."

Before the doc could say, "So Mr. Dumpty--"
Humpty grabbed all his things and got up to leave
Now he's in his room in apartment 1B
Like, "Damn, I lost faith in my whole country."

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall 
All the king's horses and all the king's men
Couldn't put Humpty back together again

2 comments:

  1. I love the spin on this. Great writing. Very cool social awareness piece. BTW, it took me 3 tries to read this poem. I kept getting redirected within 5 seconds of the page loading to some spammy ads. I was able to stop it the 4th time by putting my cursor here in the comment box.

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  2. Thank you so much for this comment and your efforts to keep reading...I'm glowing! I'm going to fix those spam ads.

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