ONE LOUSY STINKING POEM EVERY DAY FOR A MONTH
By James Parsons

If you want a new poem every day of the month,
You have to know if you need to write lots or just once.
Look at your hands, right there on your knuckles
to see how many days that is, Chuckles

Start with your finger number one
(the finger that’s beside your thumb).
It has a little knuckle lump
and next to that a second hump,
right down the row: bump, bump, bump, bump.

And in between those boney ridges
lie these anti-knuckle ditches.
Four bumps, three dents, at the top of your fist
(the end that’s opposite your wrist).

So, the meaning of that first lumpy bit
is that month’s got 31 days
(the most it can git).
The second month is in a valley
which means it has a lesser tally.
In this case since it’s February,
that’s just 28 days
(though sometimes it varies).

Your second knuckle goes back up
which mean’s 31 days again, that’s what.
Then down to 30 and up once more,
Then down and up to knuckle four.

Now the end of your hand down there at your pinky
is not the end of the calendar, Stinky,
so back to the first finger where you had started
and pick up the year from where you departed.
Julius Caesar, who honored himself
by naming a month as a toast to his health,
got 31 days the last time we checked,
and so did Augustus who named the month next.

Back and forth you go to the 31st of December,
‘til there’s just one thing that you have to remember --
My birthday is on the 14th of November.