One of my very first poems, which originally appeared in my very first book and can now be found in my book Zoo Doings, is called “Don’t Ever Seize a Weasel by the Tail.” Here it is:
Don’t Ever Seize a Weasel by the Tail
You should never squeeze a weasel
for you might displease the weasel,
and don’t ever seize a weasel by the tail.
Let his tail blow in the breeze;
if you pull it, he will sneeze,
for the weasel’s constitution tends to be a little frail.
Yes the weasel wheezes easily;
the weasel freezes easily;
the weasel’s tan complexion rather suddenly turns pale.
So don’t displease or tease a weasel,
squeeze or freeze or wheeze a weasel
and don’t ever seize a weasel by the tail.
Though you might gather from the title that this poem has something to do with weasels, actually it has nothing to do with weasels. The poem is all about the sound of the word weasel.
The notion of squeezing a weasel just popped into my head one day, and I thought that it might be fun to try to fill a poem with as many eez words as I could. I had two rules: First, there would be at least one eez word in every line, and second, the words had to feel as though they belonged there. I would not put in an eez word if it felt forced. The lines had to flow naturally. I’ll let you decide if I succeeded.
