• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Reads Poems

Reads Poems

  • About me

Ballad of a Phatmann

(Apologies to the Bard of Hibbing, MN)

A.I. says Siri and Alexa are sluts,
that Hey Google is conspiratorially nuts.

ChatGPT is smarter than you, but she’s
dumber, uglier, more volatile, too!

Who runs the Reds, that boisterous group,
who storm the capitol and smear the poop?

Who runs the Blues, and those kids on campus,
who camp out to protest one in ten conflicts?

Now please don’t blame me, dear sister and brother,
But if it ain’t brother h.a.m., must be somebody other.

From the front of homeroom, from atop a big stool,
comes this loud shoutout, and two drops of drool:

Phatmann? where’s Phatmann? the roster shows neither
his presence nor absence – But wait! there’s breaking news:

Phatmann’s in training to restore peace to our zoos –
He’s coming to de-blue the reds, and to de-red the blues!

h.a.m.

<< Previous Post in CategoryNext Post in Category >>

Primary Sidebar

Poems

  • Ars poetica
  • Oswego Suite
  • Polemic
  • Weather retorts

Prose

  • Essays & commentary
  • Here’s Waldo
  • Sampling Moby-Dick
  • Bob Dylan matter
  • Berkshire luminaries

Berkshire luminaries

  • William Cullen Bryant
  • William Jay Smith
  • Amy Clampitt
  • Edith Wharton
  • Fanny Kemble
  • Herman Melville
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne
  • Oliver Wendell Holmes
  • W.E.B. DuBois
  • William Cullen Bryant
  • William Jay Smith
  • Richard Wilbur

Copyright © 2026 ยท Dave Read; WordPress by ReadWebco - Profile at Poets & Writers.

  • Prose
  • Poems
  • About me