Child Development
As sure as prehistoric fish grew legs
and sauntered off the beaches into forests
working up some irregular verbs for their
first conversation, so three- year- old children
enter the phase of name - calling.
Every day a new one arrives and is added
to the repertoire: You Dumb Goopyhead,
You Big Sewerface, You Poop - on - the- Floor
(a kind of Navaho ring to that one)
they yell from knee level, their little mugs
flushed with challenge.
Nothing Samuel Johnson would bother
tossing out in a pub, but then the toddiers
are not trying to devastate some fatuous
Enlightenment hack.
They are just tormenting their fellow squirts
or going after the attention of the giants
way up there with their cocktails and bad breath
talking baritone nonsense to other giants,
waiting to call them names after thanking
them for the lovely party and hearing the door close.
The mature save their hothead invenctive
for things: an errant hammer, tire chains
or receding trains missed by seconds,
though they know in their adult hearts,
even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed
for his appalling behavior,
that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,
their wives are Dopey Dopeheads
and that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants.
Жаль, что не знаю языка. Может у Автора строчки рифмуются. Но, это не важно. Главное, по смыслу всё нормально! Спасибо Вам, ЕФРЕМ!