The Showdown
The bad guys in the black hats,
and the good guys in the white,
declared there’d be a showdown
in the village square tonight.
The word went out for miles around,
so people got the lowdown.
And everyone decided they
should go down to the showdown.
With everybody driving
on the highway to the showdown,
the traffic got so bad that it
became a massive slowdown.
And in the end, the bad guys
and the good guys had no throwdown.
The roads were blocked, so nobody
could show up at the showdown.
— Kenn Nesbitt
Copyright © 2025. All Rights Reserved.
Reading Level: Grade 5
Topics: Cowboys, Wordplay
Poetic Techniques: Irony, Narrative Poems, Wordplay
Word Count: 95
About This Poem
My friend and colleague Alan Katz , author of the “Silly Dilly” song books such as Take Me Out of the Bathtub, mentioned that going to be doing a performance called “The Joke Show” and he said that it’s called a “show” because you’re expected to “show up.” Since we both write funny poems, I jokingly asked if there “would be a showdown if I showed up?” As soon as I said it, I realized there was the seed of a poem in there. My wife was on the phone with her mother at the time and as soon as she hung up, she told me that her mom had given her the “lowdown.” That cinched it. I knew I had to write a showdown poem. I hope you enjoy the result.
Worksheet
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