WOBBLIES FOREVER by Dennis Doph

because why? 46

Henry Willingham ran away from the State of Maine
in all kinds of filial-competitive pain
His big beefy brothers had absorbed all the cash
Left Henry and his bony Mick butt to crash
So Henry took the choo-choo out to Cathcart Wash
Where brother-in-law Ebenezer was raising squash
Milling shingles for the burghers of the City of Queens
Leaving Henry and the workers with rice and (maybe) beans

Henry retaliated with a little vengeance ploy
Married Ebenezer's niece Jane who thought like a boy
Janie was gravid as an up-country mink
Knocked out ten Mick babies before you could think
"When the hell is this flat-chested babe gonna stop?"
So Jane Willingham came up with a bumper crop

Finally totalling Sweet Fourteen of which
The first-born Natalie was the prize queen bitch
Had long curly gold-auburn Mary Pickford hair
And a way of putting her little foot right THERE
Which, beyond saying succinctly Natalie had class
She could also, equally succinctly, Kick ass.

Hank Willingham threw himself into all things To the Left
Causes which made Eb Swann quite bereft
Of any respect for his Mick nephew so dear
For Hank had begun to espouse entities kinda queer
International Workers of the World, with their heads
like Red-bobblies
...and they recruited unions and were called The Wobblies.

In April 1911 at the Port of Everett Washington
The Wobblies gathered for a bit of sport and fun
Mill owners on the bay had hired a bunch of scabs
To stop Wobblies from taking over in dribs and in drabs
Hank and Brother Gant in an excess of zeal
Committed Baby Natalie to their Commonweal

Jane tarted up Nat in a Mary Pickford kilt
With a cute poke bonnet Bustle at a little tilt
Cute baby red shoes like Engines of Fire
But one thing about Natalie they could all admire
Nat wasn't a bit threatened by the thought of jails
So they set her to carrying Molotov Cocktails
In her little Pickford basket with yellow daffodils
About to give mill owners some bodacious thrills

Dainty Nat trucked on down from Rucker to the Bay
Distributing daffodils along the way
Stopped to kiss a cop on the corner of Grand
Hank and Gant and Jane admired her sand
She tottered over to the scab-restraining fence
Then, abandoning any semblance of sense
Tossed her Molotov over the company wall
And the ensuing explosion deafened one and all

The following day Hank, nursing a fist-sprung jaw,
Told Nat she had killed her cousin dopy Coby Shaw
Baby Nat, in a precocious manner sweet to tell,
said: "Good! Hope the cocksucker went straight to hell."

Nat grew up wild in this Everett so bold
Seven more brothers -- spies come in from the cold
Bull dyke sister and then three brothers more
And dainty baby Marsha -- the last treat in store
This Willingham Machine rollied till the Paranoid Fifties
When HUAC caught most of 'em in their long johns or shifties
Lovely Natalie into my Kraut dad's bed had strayed
And the Murder of Coby Shaw was never to be paid

Except
Some evenings Nat's blue eyes would flash a murderous green
All the brothers would wince, "Here comes the Queen of Mean."
She paid off her appeasement to men of all stripes
Since her very gay son is now passing out handi-wipes
Wiping up tears from aficionadi of semen
Remembering his Mom could be such a fucking demon
Whenver his hijinks stick in some stud's craw
He simply flips 'em off with:
"Shit. Ya shoulda met my Ma."