The Guppy from Philadelphia

The last time I visited my parents, I went through a stack of my old notebooks from high school. I found all kinds of amusing and interesting doodles, poems, and ephemera, so I asked my mom to please mail the notebooks to me.

Some of the doodles will be appearing here in the future, but for Valentine's day I thought this poem (written in my pre-calculus notebook during my junior year at York) seemed appropriate. I am amused by the effort I obviously put into finding rhymes for "Philadelphia."

I was sitting with a gnome drinking tea from a cup
When this squirmy little brown thing came swimming up.
Said, “I’d like to have a drink with the elf and ya,
“I’m a guppy from Philadelphia!

“Now there’s something that you ought to know about me.
“I’m not at all romantic but I do love tea.
“If I drink all yours I’ll only blame myself, uh huh.”
Said the guppy from Philadelphia.

So he drank all our tea and he ate all our chicken.
This made the gnome mad and he started to kick him.
Then he started to beat him with an umbrella.
Poor guppy from Philadelphia!

Well, he knew he was beat so he slithered away
And we’ve all been more romantic since that day.
Each time I drink tea I think of that fella,
That guppy from Philadelphia.

Here's a nifty audio version I made (set to reggae loops via Magic Garage Band) so you can hear the tortured meter: The Guppy from Philadelphia

I'm guessing that this was probably written in the spring of 1990, long enough after my first serious boyfriend and I had broken up that I was again interested in finding romance. Here's more information about my inspiration for this weirdness: Agape, Eros, and Philia: Greek words for love.