we were playing ping pong or
mah jongg or ding dong the witch
was dead on arrival or at a revival
she was borne out or again in a hearse
but what’s worse she was cooking
the books or with gas up a storm
and for looks she was normally
over the hill or the flu or somewhere
over the rainbow

and she wasn’t in Kansas or hell
we just saw our way back to the front
of the storm or the train or the rain
of dogs and cats and in toto
we weathered the thing but whether
or not there were monkeys all flying
around and the sound was like birds
on a wire or a witch in a fire

so we hired a lion to scare all the crows
and who knows we could kick the tin
can or the man down the yellow brick
road but we rode turning green pretty
soon the scene was the Emerald City
and we knew it was curtains for us
or the man hiding there so we tried
an old song about wizards or blizzards
or lizards and gizzards but we hadn’t
the guts no ifs ands or buts we were

much too chicken so we crossed back
over the road not knowing our left
from our right which was wrong but
we didn’t know why so we tried all along
to get back to the game of ping pong or
mah jongg or ding dong the witch
in the song was still dead and the red
was bleached out of our shoes so we
knew how to reach a conclusion again
once again there was no place like home