The Song of the Star-Spangled Sewage Workers

O, say can't you smell in the morning's delight
What failed to get flushed, thus the toilet needs cleaning?
Huge turds and bright piss, such a horrible sight,
Out of bodies fast pumped with odours demeaning?

Sewage workers so brave, the shit wagon driving
Will speed through the night to cleanse toilets for you;
How grateful we are for their generous striving
To cleanse the home of the free from the stench of stale poo.
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About This Poem

Last Few Words: As is obvious to even the dullest of readers, this is a parody of the first verse of the "Star Spangled Banner", the USA national anthem which has quite a good tune (it was actually an English drinking song) but which has some truly banal (and not very grammatical, to boot) words as follows:- Oh, say can you see by the dawn's early light / What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? / Whose broad stripes and bright stars thru (SIC!) the perilous fight /, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? / And the rocket's red glare, the bombs bursting in air, / Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there. / Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave / O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

Style/Type: Structured: Western

Review Request Direction: What did you think of my title?
How was my language use?
What did you think of the rhythm or pattern or pacing?
How does this theme appeal to you?

Editing Stage: Not actively editing

About the Author

Region, Country: London, Culture Capital of the World

Favorite Poets: Siegfried Sassoon, Wilfred Owen, Rupert Brooke, Chaucer, Shakespeare to name but a few. And VERY IMPORTANTLY: Erich Fried, a leftwing Austrian of Jewish ancestry who fled the Nazis and became a British citizen in 1949., And, other writers (non-poets mainly): Raymond Chandler, Irvine Welsh, Anthony Burgess, Graham Greene, Charles Bukowski, John le Carré, Anthony Horowitz, Mick Herron, Margaret Attwood, Edna O'Brian, Maeve Binchy., Writers who I find vastly over-rated: TS Eliot, Virgina Woolf, Sylvia Plath, Phil Larkin, E.A. Poe, A. Ginsburg, Longfellow, Gerald Manley Hopkins (actually I LOATHE Hopkins more than damson-dappled words can say).