Barndance Poem by Robert Eckstein

Barndance



I was playing at the barn dance when the aliens dropped by.
They must have heard our music from way up in the sky.
They brought beer and ribs and coleslaw so I had to let them in,
One yelled out to the caller, 'Hey Jake, now let's begin! '

I didn't know quite what to do so I just grabbed my fiddle
And good old Jake from Possum Lake called, 'Gents line up in the middle'.
They'd never danced a reel before, but seemed to do OK;
Their six feet moved real quickly and did not get in the way.
And when it came to clogging, they made the people shout
Their six-foot rhythm still is something that they like to talk about.

Square dancing, that was something else. A square needs sixteen feet
And you can't be your own corner, not on this side of the street!
Because your corner's someone's partner, it has to be that way
You simply can not swing yourself much less balance and sashay.
They tried it in a triangle, now that was something new.
It made a certain kind of sense, three times six feet plus two.

Everyone from Possum Lake was there, and folks from out of town
Luke asked them not to talk too much, it would bring news people down
And word would get to Washington and they would spoil our fun.
Just the thought of that had Billy Bob start reaching for his gun!
Ziff and Zaxx said that they has a cure to save us from this trap,
The area around Possum Lake would vanish from the map.
We'd be here, and could come and go, but hard as they might try
No one else could ever find this place if ever they came by.

Saturday, February 21, 2015
Topic(s) of this poem: dance,friendship,funny,people
POET'S NOTES ABOUT THE POEM
Third in the Possum Lake trilogy. For something more serious, see SOS. It's true.
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