A little Poetry
Joe Knaugh and the Well
You’ve all heard the bible tale
Of Jonah and the hungry whale,
In truth, the bible said, “a fish”,
But all agree it was quite whale-ish.
Well, I a Joe Knaugh also knew.
Who was caught in a large well too.
This well even had a spout,
And like Jonah, it spewed him out.
Joe Knaugh was an awful Brat.
He called his older sister fat,
He yanked his little sister’s hair
And broke his mother’s rocking chair
Oh, I could make a big long list,
But be assured, I would have missed
Some of the things that that boy did.
He was a rotten little Kid.
Now, the well was on his father’s land
And he’d been warned by every hand,
The well was no place he should play
And he had better stay away.
But little Joe, he didn’t mind.
He just was not the minding kind,
For every time they looked away,
He went beside the well to play.
For no other reason that I knew,
Than that the hands had told him not to.
I recall the day quite well
When he fell in the Knaugh Ranch well
Only his mother really cried.
His sisters said they had, they lied.
The word had spread throughout the town.
Some said that he’d already drown.
We all came to the ranch to see
What fate would come to young Joey.
They tried to save him for his mother’s sake
And no one wanted to attend his wake.
Alas, each attempt to save him would fail,
And they were beaten by the well.
No one knew just what to do,
Except return again day two.
Day two, he made and awful fuss
And he began to scream at us.
He said, but not quite in these words,
That we were all a bunch of turds.
Well that made one hand so darn mad,He said,
“When your dead we’ll all be glad.
It’s yer fault, the fix yer in.
Ya better repent of all yer sin.”
And he went to bed while we all wait
For the time when Joe Knaugh met his fate.
Then Joe Knaugh recognized his plight
“I’ll try my best to do what’s right,”
He prayed to heaven all night long,
“And to repent of all my wrong.”
Now, Joe Knaugh, He was only seven
And they didn’t want him up in heaven.
So the Lord, he did what we all couldn’t
And if we could, what we all wouldn’t
The water below him started to bubble.
And Joe Knaugh thought, Boy, I’m in trouble.
As the well was touched by the morning sun,
Joe knaugh launched out like shot from a gun
Fifty feet he flew into the sky
And that’s when we began to cry.
In the mud beside his mother feet.
He came down hard upon his seat.
Now you may ask if Joe Knaugh kept
The oath he made while we all slept.
He really did, I’m happy to tell,
For about as long as he was in the well.
His next bad deed, at least I think,
Was dipping my hair in a bottle of ink.
At least we had two precious days
Before he returned to his mischievous ways.
by Kristin Johnson
You’ve all heard the bible tale
Of Jonah and the hungry whale,
In truth, the bible said, “a fish”,
But all agree it was quite whale-ish.
Well, I a Joe Knaugh also knew.
Who was caught in a large well too.
This well even had a spout,
And like Jonah, it spewed him out.
Joe Knaugh was an awful Brat.
He called his older sister fat,
He yanked his little sister’s hair
And broke his mother’s rocking chair
Oh, I could make a big long list,
But be assured, I would have missed
Some of the things that that boy did.
He was a rotten little Kid.
Now, the well was on his father’s land
And he’d been warned by every hand,
The well was no place he should play
And he had better stay away.
But little Joe, he didn’t mind.
He just was not the minding kind,
For every time they looked away,
He went beside the well to play.
For no other reason that I knew,
Than that the hands had told him not to.
I recall the day quite well
When he fell in the Knaugh Ranch well
Only his mother really cried.
His sisters said they had, they lied.
The word had spread throughout the town.
Some said that he’d already drown.
We all came to the ranch to see
What fate would come to young Joey.
They tried to save him for his mother’s sake
And no one wanted to attend his wake.
Alas, each attempt to save him would fail,
And they were beaten by the well.
No one knew just what to do,
Except return again day two.
Day two, he made and awful fuss
And he began to scream at us.
He said, but not quite in these words,
That we were all a bunch of turds.
Well that made one hand so darn mad,He said,
“When your dead we’ll all be glad.
It’s yer fault, the fix yer in.
Ya better repent of all yer sin.”
And he went to bed while we all wait
For the time when Joe Knaugh met his fate.
Then Joe Knaugh recognized his plight
“I’ll try my best to do what’s right,”
He prayed to heaven all night long,
“And to repent of all my wrong.”
Now, Joe Knaugh, He was only seven
And they didn’t want him up in heaven.
So the Lord, he did what we all couldn’t
And if we could, what we all wouldn’t
The water below him started to bubble.
And Joe Knaugh thought, Boy, I’m in trouble.
As the well was touched by the morning sun,
Joe knaugh launched out like shot from a gun
Fifty feet he flew into the sky
And that’s when we began to cry.
In the mud beside his mother feet.
He came down hard upon his seat.
Now you may ask if Joe Knaugh kept
The oath he made while we all slept.
He really did, I’m happy to tell,
For about as long as he was in the well.
His next bad deed, at least I think,
Was dipping my hair in a bottle of ink.
At least we had two precious days
Before he returned to his mischievous ways.
by Kristin Johnson
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