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When you become bald
When you become testa bottiglia When you become as bald as a bottle You fall in love with hats Ask any baldy I have bushels of hats I have basketfuls of hats I wear my hats as I please Indoors or out Just like my uncle Walt used to do I have all sorts of hats I have a Jewish hat for the synagogue I have a Christian Amish Mennonite farmer’s hat for the cathedral I have a Moslem hat for the mosque I have a Buddhist hat for when the Dalai Lama descends upon my city I was born under the cool chameleon hat star that twinkles Live & let live I am always the black cat in the hat I am a man of many hats But I just don’t wear faithless hats They are just too holey They are just too full of hooey I just love speaking through my many hats That is why I have oodles of them When I am wearing my high hat When I act so high hat I speak fancy French to wow the witless I am a Somali I often forget to put on my thinking cap Ergo I am often as mad as a harebrained hatter Ergo I am often as mad as a March hare even when it is September Ergo I often get mad at the drop of any of my many hats That is why I always shoot my silly Somali self senseless And that shouldn’t make you eat your hat I am never ever an old-hat I never wear a ten-dollar hat on a five-cent head like Dubya But do pray let me tell you about My most especial My most priceless beautiful hat My very favorite hat That is now perched on top of my head That keeps my baldpate Warm Wise Witty Waxy It’s green It’s white It’s red It’s silver It’s all these cozy colors coordinated Cool I inherited my hat From my friend From Laurent Laliberté Laurent Laliberté is libre now Free From the “short fever-fit” of this life From the fret of this life From the fatude of this life From the strife of this life Laurent is gone “Gone away Gone far away into [that] silent land” Gone far away into “that undiscovered country From whose bourne no traveler returns” Laurent is gone now Gone away Gone far away into that silent land He is here too For you know "Every shut eye ain't sleep Every goodbye ain't gone" So I see Laurent sometimes So I hear Laurent sometimes So I feel Laurent sometimes Because Si-yaad baa lee yiraa maandhey Salaad dii baan ka’a! Because My name is Si-yaad Because I am up every morning For the dawn prayer Before the muezzin calls Come to prayer Come to real success Prayer is better than snoring So I sit silent before the Almighty Before the false dawn Before daybreak Before breakfast Before you can barely distinguish a black thread from a white thread For my Togane faith is the Tagore bird that sings when the dawn is still dark So I sit silent before the Almighty Then I talk with the Most Compassionate Then I walk with the Most Merciful Then I beseech The All Peaceful The Bestower of Peace To help us Somalis realize our Somali Faith Venture Vision To help us Somalis pull the Somali peace rabbit out of the Somali hat So I sit silent before Allah Before the best Teacher Who can teach like Allah Who teaches me every dawn How to see the invisible How to hear the inaudible How to feel the intangible How to achieve the impossible Which is to be a Somali barefoot penniless poet Which is to sing à la Americano Just like Yankee Doodle Dandy Dude Just like Yankee Doodle Dandy Dude do or die Just like the real live nephew of my Uncle Sam Just like as if I were born on the Fourth of July. Mohamud Siad Togane E-Mail:togane@sympatico.ca ________________________________________________________________ We welcome the submission of all articles for possible publication on WardheerNews.com
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