Tuesday, December 14, 2010

The Muddlehead by Ogden Nash







I knew a man from Petushkee
As muddleheaded as could be.

He always got mixed up with clothes;
He wore his mittens on his toes,
Forgot his collar in his haste,
And tied his tie around his waist.

What a muddle head was he,
That man who lived in Petushkee!

They told him as he went about:
“You’ve got u’r coat on inside out!”
And when they saw his hat, they said:
“You’ve put a saucepan on your head!”

What a muddle head was he,
That man who lived in Petushkee!

At lunch he scratched a piece of bread,
And spread some butter on his head.
He put his walking stick to bed,
And he stood in the rack instead.

What a muddle head was he,
That man who lived in Petushkee!

He walked upto a tram one day
And climbed in very sprightly;
Conductor thought that he would pay,
Instead he said politely:

“Parding your beggon,
Kister Monductor,
I’m off for a week’s vacation;
I stop you to beg your cramway tar
As soon as we reach the station.”
Conductor got a fright
And didn’t sleep that nite.

What a muddle head was he,
That man who lived in Petushkee!

He rushed into the first café:
“A railway ticket please, One way.”
And at the ticket office said:
“A slice of tea and a cup of bread.”

What a muddle head was he,
That man who lived in Petushkee!

He passed the man collecting the fares,
And entered a carriage awaiting repairs,
That stood on a siding, all by itself.
Half of his luggage, he put on a shelf,
The rest on the floor, his coat on his lap
And settled himself for a bit of a nap.

All at once he raised his head,
“I must have been asleep”- he said.
“Hey, what stop is this?” he cried
“Petushkee,” a voice replied.

Once again he closed his eyes
And dreamt he was in Paradise.
When he woke, he looked about,
Raised the window and leaned out.

“I’ve seen this place before, I believe,
Is it Kharkov or is it Kiev?
Tell me where I am,” he cried.
“In Petushkee”, a voice replied.

And so again he settled down
And dreamt the world was upside down
When he woke, he looked about,
Raised the window and looked out.

“I seem to know this station too,

Is it Nalchik or Baku?
Tell me what its called,” he cried.
“Petushkee’ a voice replied.

Up he jumped: “It’s a crime!
I’ve been riding all this time,
And here I am where I began!
That’s no way to treat a man!’

What a muddle head was he,
That man who lived in Petushkee!

PS: i was made to learn this by heart in class 1 for the class-wise elocution and i still love it! :D

35 comments:

  1. Thanks for sharing. I too learnt this poem for a school elocution event...and somehow remember it to date! (In fact as I have grown older, the things I was 'forced' to learn (like poems in two languages!) in school have made more sense to me and given me a lot of happiness!!).....for this one I really like how Nash makes the reader 'visualize' the poem...I can almost see this man from Petushkee! :-)

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  2. it's just that i have seen many including me make a start in life like this way, all muddled up

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  3. Exactly, I agree with Apoorva. I was in class 9th or 10th, not sure. My teacher read out the poem as she went about explaining it. Only now do i actually understand what it meant as i visualize this queer man from Petushkee trying to go about his daily routine...
    Brilliantly written poem by Nash!!

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  4. Read it after 30 years....enjoyed it like a child again

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  5. Still great fun, as i read Comments. What a fantastic muddlehead . Again school. What a place petushkee would be with sych characters!!

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    1. @ Arun......couldn't be worse than our class with characters like us.... He He He

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  6. I jut wanted to know who is the poet

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  7. I thinkI was in class 9th or 10th,when we had this in our syllabus..
    Reading it after 36yrs... Recollected the topic and his sitting in the train , with been told of the same station as he started his travel...


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  8. Yeah totally I just like this poem so much it's too funny!!!!!!
    ......

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  9. This is amazing ......I was totally astonished to hear a poem about a man soo foolish that I laughed until tears rolled down my eyes

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  10. Was looking for this poem for elocution... I had forgotten the title though i taught it a couple of years back... Can identify with d muddlehead🤣

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  11. thanks for posting ,I needed a poem to learn for my indivisual elecution

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  12. Nice and hillarious poem

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  13. Plz give m a answer of this question: how can u say that the person un this poem is confused and absent minded?

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  14. We had this at school,in 1976. Class 8. The Americans love to tell the world that their writers write everything humorous, attributing classic works to Twain, Harte and Nash. This poem was written originally in Russian and translated brilliantly into English much before Nash was even born.

    Originally the Kister Monductor was a play on words which made the conductor lose his sleep,in Russian. But as none of us know Russian we wouldn't be able to appreciate impolite words said by the muddlehead from petushki. That is the problem with translations from one language to another. Anyway, the translation in itself is very funny.

    Incidentally, if you are looking for this poem on the Internet you are going to find it on a large number of sites and written in that ill spelt semi literate dialect pretending to be English.

    It is called Americanese and they cannot even spell night properly. So look for a version on the internet posted on an English site and not on an Américanese dialect page. If you are learning English don't think that anything written which has no idea of proper spelling, grammar, vocabulary or even punctuation is English.

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  15. My teacher teach me to read between lines

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  16. I learned this poem in my school.
    The name of this poem is A Muddled Mess right sir

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  17. This is one of my favorites.... Old School lol

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  18. This poem is one of my favourites. I am absolutely love this.thanks for posting

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  19. I read this beautiful poem in 1999. Still remember it.

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  20. Ha Ha Ha, had it in Grade seventh syllabus

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  21. We have all read this as part of our syllabus and are cominig back to it at different times in our lives. Reading the comments was really nostalgic.

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