Backward Bill

Signals

When the light is green you go.

When the light is red you stop.

But what do you do

When the light turns blue

With orange and lavender spots?

Backward Bill

Backward Bill, Backward Bill,

He lives way up on Backward Hill,

Which is really a hole in the sandy ground

(But that's a hill turned upside down).

Backward Bill's got a backward shack

With a big front porch that's built out back.

You walk through the window and look out the door

And the cellar is up on the very top floor.

Backward Bill he rides like the wind

Don't know where he's going but sees where he's been.

His spurs they go "neigh" and his horse it goes "clang,"

And his six-gun goes "gnab," it never goes "bang."

Backward Bill's got a backward pup,

They eat their supper when the sun comes up,

And he's got a wife named Backward Lil,

"She's my own true hate," says Backward Bill.

Backward Bill wears his hat on his toes

And puts on his underwear over his clothes.

And come every payday he pays his boss,

And rides off a-smilin' a-carryin' his hoss.

 

 (here)

Shel Silverstein's poems are like A.A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh stories. So simple, yet incredibly clever. I read both Silverstein and Milne when I was younger, but I definitely did not understand them. I read a few Winnie the Pooh stories again this summer, and I couldn't believe how insightful they were. 

After Pooh ate quite a bit of honey and milk at Rabbit's house...

"he started to climb out of the hole. He pulled with his front paws, and pushed with his back paws, and in a little while his nose was in the open again ... and then his ears ... and then his front paws ... and then his shoulders ... and then-'Oh, help!' said Pooh, 'I'd better go back,' 'Oh bother!' said Pooh, 'I shall have to go on.' 'I can't do either!' said Pooh, 'Oh help and bother!' ...

...Christopher Robin nodded. 'Then there's only one thing to be done,' he said. 'We shall have to wait for you to get thin again.' 'How long does getting thin take?' asked Pooh anxiously. 'About a week I should think.' 'But I can't stay here for a week!' 'You can stay here all right, silly old Bear. It's getting you out which is so difficult.' 'We'll read to you,' said Rabbit cheerfully. 'And I hope it won't snow,' he added. 'And I say, old fellow, you're taking up a good deal of room in my house - do you mind if I use your back legs as a towel-horse? Because, I mean, there they are - doing nothing - and it would be very convenient just to hang the towels on them. 'A Week!' said Pooh gloomily. 'What about meals?' 'I'm afraid no meals,' said Christopher Robin, 'because of getting thin quicker. But we will read to you.' Bear began to sigh, and then found he couldn't because he was so tightly stuck; and a tear rolled down his eye, as he said: 'Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?' So for a week Christopher Robin read that sort of book at the North end of Pooh, and Rabbit hung his washing on the South end... and in between Bear felt himself getting slenderer and slenderer. And at the end of the week Christopher Robin said,

'Now!'

So he took hold of Pooh's front paws and Rabbit took hold of Christopher Robin, and all Rabbit's friends and relations took hold of Rabbit, and they all pulled together ... And for a long time Pooh only said 'Ow!' ... And 'Oh!' ... And then, all of a sudden he said 'Pop!' just if a cork were coming out of a bottle. And Christopher Robin and Rabbit and all relations went head-over-heels backwards ...and on top of them came Winnie-the-Pooh free! So with a nod of thanks to his friends, he went on with his walk through the forest, humming proudly to himself. But Christopher Robin looked after him lovingly, and said to himself 'Silly Old Bear!'
(story via here)

This isn't the most clever Pooh story, but it shows how much care they have for one another. And I don't think Milne wrote this to promote starvation.

It's all very vague, but I think I got my Pooh Bear before I read the stories. I think I watched the movies first, and then I wanted my own Pooh. I got him when I was seven, and now I'm 22, so we've been cuddle buddies for 15 years. My Pooh looks a bit less healthy than the Pooh below, unfortunately. I mean, he's gone through the atrocities of me puking, crying, and practically being strangled from anger.

 (here)