How Could Red Riding Hood?

When we were young, but old enough for us to understand
We all believed in fairies, and the folks in fairy land
But the modern child is runnin’ wild
He wants to know too much
He’s never understood
About Red Riding Hood

How could Little Red Riding Hood
Have been so very good
And still keep the wolf from the door ?
Job ? Father ? Mother ? No ! She had none
So where in the hell did the money come from ?
I need to ask it :
Who filled her basket ?
The story books never tell
They say that she found a wolf in Granny’s bed
With a great big sun bonnet pulled over his head
But sometimes I wonder what she found instead
How could Little Red Riding Hood
Have been so very very good
And still kept the wolf from the door ?

How could Red Riding Hood
Have been so very good
And still keep the wolf from the door ?
Why was she dressed up in her bright flaming red
Unless she expected to knock someone dead ?
Why did she ramble ?
She knew it was a gamble
She was out in the woods for no good
They say she was a maid most discrete
And there’s no doubt about it, she must have been sweet
But you know and I know that even sweet girls must eat
How could Little Red Riding Hood
Have been so very good
And still keep the wolf from the door ?

I ask you, how could Little Red Riding Hood
Have been so very good
And still keep the wolf from the door ?
I’ve heard of many strange things in New York
But who ever heard of a wolf that could talk ?
I hate to doubt it
But there’s something about it
That sounds mighty funny to me.
I don’t believe that any one of those fairy tales is true
– You don’t ?
– No, I don’t believe ’em. D’you believe ’em ?
– I believe all fairy tales
– Then I’d like to ask you :
Who was the father of all the little children of the woman that
lived in the shoe ?
Jack the giant killer !
Say, how could Little Red Riding Hood
Have been so very good
And still keep the wolf from the door ?

A.P. Randolph

[A big hit in 1926, though banned on the radio because of its lyrics]

The Shortest Day

So the shortest day came and the year died, And all down the centuries of the snow-white world, Came people singing and dancing, To drive the dark away. They lit candles in the winter trees, They hung their homes with evergreen, They burned beseeching fires all night long, To keep the year alive. And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake, They shouted: Revelling! Listen, all down the frosty ages you can hear them. All the long echoes sing the same refrain. They carol, feast, give thanks, And dearly love their friends, And pray for peace. And so do we Here, now, this year and every year, Welcome Yule!

Susan Cooper

Language

Language exists less to record the actual than to liberate the imagination.

Anthony Burgess
Language Made Plain

crushed under his body

She enjoyed his weight on her, enjoyed being crushed under his body. She wanted him soldered to her, from mouth to feet.

Anaïs Nin
Delta of Venus

A necessary question…

You want to do WHAT to me?

Act of love

In this darkness
your hands find me
my face,
frost on the window pane
abandoned to infinity