"When I Heard the Learn'd Urologist" [by Mitch Sisskind]

Where were you when televisions
Multiplied in American homes
And pastel-colored cars had fins
On which at least once a boy
Chasing a ball stabbed himself
And the fins, like kings, died out?

I lived when Eisenhower’s golfing
And mumbled press conferences
Affronted the intelligentsia whose
Worship of Stevenson blossomed
Into the miracle of Jack Kennedy’s
Televised White House cello recitals.

In the doghouse was an expression
Extremely common in those days.
You might hear a man who forgot
The anniversary of his marriage
Forty years ago refer to himself
As in the doghouse, for example.

People said, On the warpath.
They said, You’re cooking with gas.
They said, Fish out of water --
Jump on the bandwagon – A fly in
The ointment – The jury is still out --
He’s always blowing his own horn --

Or how about this? Eke lullaby,
My loving boy, thy lusts relent --
Four hundred and fifty years ago
A man wrote that poem to his penis.
Can you imagine it happening today?
I can. I’m a board certified urologist.

-- from the archive; first posted September 2014

Comments

[Joel W.]

I've both lived and live through the essence of this poem. As senior citizen ,visits to my board certified urologist put me in the doghouse vis a vis all things penis and bladder related. I'm sure that man of four hundred and fifty years ago only WISHED he had a board certified urologist attend to his private matters.

In salute to achievements in science, medicine and poetry, kudos to all board certified poet-urologists of this world.

[Fran Morris Rosman]

Loved this! And just think of how many of these sayings show up in the lyrics of the Great American Songbook.
Come blow your horn - Frank Sinatra thanks to Sammy Cahn & Jimmy Van Heusen (and Neil Simon)
I'm Cooking with Gas - belted by Nancy Walker in her solo "I Can Cook, Too" in ON THE TOWN, lyrics by Betty Comden & Adolph Green.
Really terrific memories, thank you.

[Dr. Raghavendra Pradeep]

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Kidney Specialist in Hanamkonda