The Smithsonian's Weird Collection Poem by Sheena Blackhall

America's attic has squirreled away
Ruby slippers and shrunken heads,
Dinosaur poo &poison darts
Sick bags, gallstones, insect eggs

America's attic has specimens, strange
Astronaut boots, and adverts too
Stuffed white rats from Soviet Space
Tribal textiles, all on view

Sea slugs, beetles, and umpteen flies
An iron lung: how terribly weird!
Fonzie's jacket from Happy Days
And a seventeen foot long gentleman's beard

There's Lincoln's famous pocket watch
George Washington's tent's kept here
Warren Harding's silk pyjamas,
Franklin's cane and more that's queer

One of Harry Truman's bowling pins
Cher Amie, the famous pigeon
Fifty feet of Route 66
And a bun size-gauge of precision

There's a Mormon Sunstone in its hoard
And a mechanized monk from Spain
Indiana Jones's hat & coat
An a huge Squid Eye's in the frame.

The Blue Hope Diamond's hard to beat
There's petrified wood and shells
With boxes of rats & mice of course
And cups from human skulls

Have you studied the Veg-o-matic?
Folding bathtub? It's a hoot
And Theodore Roosevelt's teddy bear
Is iconic, old, and cute

There's a terrifying fake baby
And a horrid big squid eye
There's pickled woolly mammoth flesh
And a sardine can to spy

With poisoned darts, and a bubble suit
And spears from long ago
There's Kevin Spacey's House of cards
And a yo-yo out on show

A bill that'd written on salmon skin
I'd say is most unique
And a robo-badger to ferret-train
Will certainly make your week

There's Evel Knieval's motorbike
And a record by Elvis Presley
But to shock the socks off nerves of steel
See the creeping baby, grisly

America's attic has specimens, strange
Monkey masks and a vampire bat
With devil jugs, ghost marionettes
Can your museum beat that?