The Great Go-Goop War

[Jim Dye]

Wonderful satire. Here is a link if you want to see the illustrations:

http://www.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=4732

Saddam I Am

In homage, and with apology, to the late Theodore Geisel

On a faraway planet beside a far star

So far the best telescopes can't see that far

In a place you can't get to by airplane or bus

There stood a tall tower — the Great Tower of Us

It was taller than all other towers together,

A building so big it looked down on the weather

And yet it grew constantly higher and higher

From deep engine-dungeons, right up to the spire

(Just how did this work? Well, to fully explain

Would take many more words than these verses contain)

The Tower was covered with Plumbing and Wheels

(More like those on bikes than on automobiles)

And up near the stoop of its uppermost coop

Spun the biggest of all Wheels — the so-called Great Hoop

The Hoop spun the Wheels and the Wheels turned the Hoop

And the whole shebang ran in a grand loop-de-loop. . . .

As long as it didn't run out of Go-Goop

Go-Goop! The thick, sticky underground soup

That pulsed in the plumbing and turned the Great Hoop!

'Twas Go-Goop that kept the big rollers from rusting!

Go-Goop that kept all the up-thrusters thrusting!

Go-Goop! Fulfilling the Us-ers' desire

To always go higher and higher and HIGHER. . . .

. . . As long as there was enough Goop to be found

In the great Go-Goop bubbles that grew underground

Now, most Us-ers clung to their coops on the side

of the growing Great Tower — along for the ride

And most did their part as the Tower rose higher

To hold it together with stickum and wire

But others climbed upward to savor the thrill

Of Permanent Tournament King-of-the-Hill

There were climbers who did it with pulleys and jacks

And others who climbed over those climbers' backs

There were swoopers and swingers

who swung with such zest

That the rest of Us cheered and assisted their quest

As they grappled and battled their way to the top

— Though occasionally, one of these heroes would drop

Up near the Great Hoop and the highest-up Wheels

Lived Big Wheeler-Dealers who made the Big Deals

In pumping and piping and pushing Go-Goop

Or in selling machines like the Go-Gooper Scoop

Of course all the Big Wheeler-Dealers agreed

That the Tower must rise at the speediest speed

So they put out a paper describing their views

And sent it down-Tower — the Top Story News

"Onward and Upward! It's our Higher Calling!

Pump up the plumbing! Have no Fear of Falling!"

— So said the Top Story News, when its readers

Were right in the middle of choosing their leaders

And soon, the Go-Goopers' own troopers took power

In all of the uppermost floors of the Tower

And thus, in the year of Gazillion and One

The "Era of Zooming-On-High" was begun

In the Great Hoop itself, in the hub of the hub

Sat Drumbeater, Itchascratch, Shackles, and Shrub

They'd angled and wangled 10 years for this day

And now had the whole Tower under their sway

Shackles, 'twas said, was the brains of the group

Who'd planned their campaign to command the Great Hoop

Drumbeater's job was to fend off the foe

While Itchascratch spied on the Tower below

As for Shrub, he was born umpty-five stories high

And yet somehow he seemed like a regular guy

Just the guy to tell Us-ers Below not to worry

When Us-ers Above seemed to hustle and hurry

Shrub had no patience for fretters and frowners

"True Us-ers aren't fussers! We're Uppers, not Downers!"

He said to a roomful of Who-When-Where-What-ers

— and muttered a few other stutters and sputters

What Shackles and Shrub hated most was a Why-er

When people said, "Why must we always go higher?"

Or, "Why do we have to use so much Go-Goop?"

They'd have Itchascratch send down a Snitch or a Snoop

. . . Which is why, when the Tower would shiver and sway

Most Us-ers had little or nothing to say

Whenever the Tower would wiggle or wobble

They'd say, "We have no right to quibble or squabble.

Let's stick to our level and stay out of trouble!"

But then there were Them — all those strange other peoples

Who had their own citadels, turrets, and steeples

Fragile things standing in lakes of Go-Goop

Amid a grim desert of black Go-Goop Poop

While a few Them-ers lived at a humongous height

There were many more slogging along, out of sight

Down under the weather, down under the smoke

A hardscrabble rabble of penniless folk

[Jim Dye]

They worked on the land, scratching acres of stubble

Or dug out Go-Goop from the nearest big bubble

Though some of them traveled to find the Great Tower

And work there for chicken feed — two specks an hour

Still others who'd spent all their lives in the cellars

Had come to resent all the Great Tower's dwellers

Some even said, "Us-ers are demons and devils!

It's time for their Tower to fall a few levels!"

And Shrub, staring down at their small, scattered palaces

Seeing Them stare back at him with mixed malices

Sent down the word through the Top Story News:

"It's Us against Them, and we Win or we Lose!

And if you disagree with me," Shrub said, "Ahem —

You can't be with Us — so you must be with Them!"

The scariest Them-er was Goddam Ga-Zing

A swaggering bully who'd made himself King

He lived in a fortress half-buried in sand

On top of a huge heap of Goop-bearing land

Goddam was a climber, both ruthless and proud

Who'd built up his heap to peep over the cloud

It was rumored that under his fortress of stones

The foundation was made of his enemies' bones

It had suited the Us-ers, a long time before

To side with Goddam in a Goop-grabbing war,

Even giving Goddam a 10-ton blunderbuss —

Until one day he brandished the blunder at Us

"And ever since then he's been nothing but trouble--

A time bomb on top of a great Go-Goop bubble,"

Said Shackles to Shrub, sitting in the Great Hoop

"But if we defuse him, we'll get his Go-Goop!"

They watched and they waited, they double-dog-dared

They badgered and bugged, but Goddam wasn't scared

He stuck to his ground, even though he was grounded

By Us blunderbussers who had him surrounded

And Shackles to Shrub muttered, "Steady, boy, steady

I'll let you know when — but now we're not ready."

Then one sunny morning there came a loud Boom

That shook the Great Tower and rattled each room

All Us-ers looked upward, and saw with dismay

That two higher spires had splintered away

The spires, and all of their dwellers, had tumbled

And fallen so hard that the whole planet rumbled

and terrified Us-ers sent up a great cry:

"Who did this to Us?" they all cried, "Who, and Why?"

And a voice answered back, "This is Ali Ka-Blam

But don't even bother to guess where I am

My gang is all over! We strike from below!

We'll hit you again — Where and When, we don't know

"As to Why . . . " Ka-Blam started — then Shackles broke in

"Don't listen to him — Don't you even begin!

He'll bring down the Tower of Us if we let him!"

And Us-ers agreed on the need to go get him

Ka-Blammers were fingered and captured and tracked--

But Ali himself pulled a vanishing act

Drumbeater, told to go hunt for the foe

Stared over the empty brown fog down below

"You know," he said, "What if we can't find Ka-Blam?

This could be our chance to go after Goddam!

"Ka-Blam is a nuisance — a huge party poop —

But Goddam is on top of goo-gobs of Go-Goop!

The people are frantic, demanding some action . . .

and frankly," he added, "they need some distraction."

(The Tower had lately been swaying and swerving

Which Us-ers Below and Above found unnerving

The Big Dealers' Wheels whizzing wildly on top

Were causing each other to flutter and flop —

And occasionally, one of those Big Wheels would drop )

But Drumbeater smiled, "There's a new kind of Boom

We can point at a target and let it go — zoom!

It goes for the kill with such surgical skill

We can blow that Goddam fellow off of his hill

And barely one dollop of Go-Goop will spill!"

The Us-ers were puzzled. They paused and said, "Well . . . "

And Shrub said, "It's settled! We'll blow him to Hell!

The building of this mighty Boom starts tomorrow!

We'll do it if we have to beg, steal, and borrow!"

So straight from the side of the Great Tower of Us

They built a huge trestle, a trellis, a truss

A crane with a crank and highly armed arm

And Shackles declared, "It'll work like a charm!

"Of course, it will run off our Go-Goop supply

(And the price will go up as our bubbles go dry)

And of course it'll throw the whole Tower off kilter

(But we'll manage that with a big counter-tilter)

"Of course we'll need soldiers, the best of our best

To march out and put our big Boom to the test

But when it's all over, gosh, won't it be GREAT — "

Then somebody somewhere below shouted "Wait!!"

Shrub turned around and looked down — So did Shackles

Drumbeater looked, and he hiked up his hackles

Itchascratch hiccuped — his upper lip curled

They'd forgotten about the so-called Nother World

The hundreds of Towers that stood under Us's —

Some of them owners of big blunderbusses

And every last one intertwined with the Loop

That linked the Great Hoop to the source of Go-Goop.

"Wait!" cried the Nothers, "Consider what's coming!

Remember — the Go-Goop that runs in our plumbing,

The Goop that keeps all of our Hoops going 'round,

And the Goop that Goddam has in store underground —

"Us Goop or Them Goop, it's all of the same Goop

The same old be-careful-it-bursts-into-flame Goop!

The stuff that we use to go higher and faster

Could take us all down in one great big disaster

Blow up Goddam and the next thing you know

The next thing will blow and then on it will go . . .

"Just look at our Towers, all shifting and shaking

Our wheels are all wobbling! Our plumbing is breaking!

And all it would take is one well-aimed ka-blam

While you're bent over double to get at Goddam . . .

"And all of us could wind up under the weather

Because," said the Nothers, "We're tied up together!"

But Shrub, with a shrug, said, "We'll go it alone."

He turned and he frowned and he hung up the phone

From his High Command Post in the highest-up room

Shrub issued the order to lower the Boom

The weapon was readied. The whole Tower groaned.

"Our purpose," Shrub thundered, "will not be postponed!"

And then, as he hovered, he felt a sharp peck

As if an ice pick put a nick on his neck

"Ow!" hollered Shrub, "Did that come from Ga-Zing?"

"No," Shackles said, "It's from Lo No Ka-Ching!"

"From where? Over THERE? Golly, what do you figger?"

Shrub said as his finger closed over the trigger

"Let's deal with them later," he said, taking aim,

"Ka-Ching has no Go-Goop. They're not in this game!"

A tremor and clamor came up from below

As Us-ers of every level yelled "No!"

While others said "Go!" and still others said "Wait!"

Shrub's short index finger lay heavy with Fate

The Us-er's great power hung out on a limb

Shrub knew the whole planet was staring at him

The Great Tower started to shiver and rattle . . .

Shrub narrowed his sights —

and prepared to do battle. . . .

[bbrooksux]

That's the best way I can think of to explain this mess to children!