What's so wrong with who we are;
We'll sell all we own for a beat-up Lincoln,
and can't even drive a car.
Like this friend of mine,
he and his wife, just had a baby boy.
They gave him this highfalutin’ name,
when they could’ve just called him Roy?
What’s wrong with Willie, or Billy, or
Jimmy Lee?
Something normal, if slightly square;
Why a name that blatantly lies to the boy,
like he’s special, and goin’ somewhere?
I felt even worse as I watched this curse
as the other kids played tag;
the boy was solemn and brooding
and distant and moody,
in an out-of-this-world type bag.
I knew at first sight there was somethin’ not right
as I watched the kids at play;
he wouldn’t play with the others, or even his mother,
he’d just idle his time away.
He was cold as ice, and his eyes weren’t nice,
they took on this chilling hue;
he would stare at the ground
as though listening to sounds
that were silent to me and you.
It’s a shame what a name can do to the brain
of a perfectly normal child;
I’ve known this kid from the time he was born,
and I have yet see him smile.
Ridicule and shame will bring him pain
throughout his entire life;
He was out of step with the rest of the world,
and I’m tellin’ you, that just ain’t right.
I grieve for this child as he struggles through life
with his head hung down from strife,
but stuck with a name like Thelonious Monk,
what can he possibly do with his life?
Eric L. Wattree