Musical Selection

By Adam Abdelaziz

Rats, rats, rats,
Everywhere you looked, you saw rats!
Rats on the doormats,
Rats on the bathmats,
Rats so giant they scared tomcats.
Then one day came a man,
Who said he could help us, who said he had a plan,
Dressed in green, blue, and red, with a pipe in hand,
He said he came from a faraway land,
He said he could make the rats disappear at his command,
By playing a tune on his pipe: a small fee was his only demand,
To give us back Hamelin – our precious homeland,
The Mayor said in our native German, 
“Please, Pied Piper, we must be freed of those vermin!”
And so, he played a tune, and all the rats began to follow him,
Intoxicated, hypnotized by his sweet hymn.
He led them to the river, and one by one, they got in,
They drowned to the sweet sound,
For they choose to listen instead of swim,
And when the time came to collect what he was owed,
The Mayor said, “Pay you? What for? Goading rats down a dirt road?!”
“We had a deal, Bürgermeister. Woe to the folk who cheat the Pied Piper!”
But neither the Mayor nor the townspeople took his threat seriously,
They broke their promise and failed to act virtuously,
And so, one Sunday afternoon,
The Pied Piper returned and played a new tune,
Then every boy and girl from our dishonest commune,
Followed the Pied Piper to a deep, dark forest – none were immune!
Except for two youngsters who were left behind:
I, who limped, and my wife, who was blind.