Twickham Tweer
Shed a tear for Twickham Tweer
who ate uncommon meals,
who often peeled bananas
and then only ate the peels,
who emptied jars of marmalade
and only ate the jars,
and only ate the wrappers
off of chocolate candy bars.
When Twickham cooked a chicken
he would only eat the bones,
he discarded scoops of ice cream
though he always ate the cones,
he’d boil a small potato
but he’d only eat the skin,
and pass up canned asparagus
to gobble down the tin.
He sometimes dined on apple cores
and bags of peanut shells,
on cottage cheese containers,
cellophane from caramels,
but Twickham Tweer passed on last year,
that odd and novel man,
when he fried an egg one morning
and then ate the frying pan.
Copyright Credit: Jack Prelutsky, "Twickham Tweer" from The Sheriff of Rottenshot. Copyright © 1982 by Jack Prelutsky. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Source: The Random House Book of Poetry for Children (HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 1983)