Hippo-po-poem
One thing that we learned in our time full of shame.
We all know to cringe when we hear evil’s name:
Oh please do not blame us
For justly infamous : Tsar Hippo-po-tamus!
He lived off our labor for many long years.
He lived off our hippo-po-blood, sweat and tears
While he hippo-po-wined and hippo-po-dined
And relaxed on a hippo-po cushion reclined.
He grew stinking rich through hippo-thetical deals
Spouting hippo-po-hype in his hippo-po-spiels.
Thus he soared to the top of the hippo-po-heap.
While we, his poor subjects, did nothing but weep.
We were treated like zeros—to him our true worth
While he thought himself hippo-po-hub of the earth.
On his hippo-life story they wrote boring tomes
His hippo-po-portraits disfigured our homes.
And hippo-po-paeans assaulted our ears.
As his hippo-po-flunkies led hippo-cheers
Hip-hippo-hoorah, hip-hippo-hooray
Give thanks for our hippo-po-era today.
True hippo-po-crits were assured of success
While back-sliders were punished and made to confess
And those who resisted such hippo-po-nosis.
He sent to locked wards for their hippo-psychosis.
So you see we had reached hippo-bolic extremes
Which luckily, don’t last forever, it seems.
Kind fate put an end to our hip-tatorship
We heard that the hippo was dead of the grippe.
He was dead of the grippe, or the hippo-po-flu
Whatever, we’d never see his like anew.
Of the hippo-po-plague we were finally rid
And no other we’d ever let do what he did.
Yet rumors now claim he is not dead in truth
But lives under the alias Tsar Be-he-moth.
Translated from the Russian
by Lydia Stone