Serious Advice for Children

(Another translation from Joachim Ringelnatz’s 1931 Children-Confusion-Book; read about him here).

Serious Advice for Children
(Ernster Rat an Kinder)

Woodchips fall when you plane
Corpses float in the Seine
Every boat below the deck
Gets covered in a sticky dreck

Beneath the mane’s greasy patina
Of every lion and hyena
Cling a host of critters
In goose feathers, hanging on
Are nesting lice, just like with swans
(Not to mention human beings
Then have it worse with their hygiene)

Not for nothing are there quarantines

When I yawn it’s like gangrene

Only tears are truly pristine
And water from mountain streams

Kids: brush your teeth clean!!