Friggatriskaidekaphobia

Friday the 13th
by Gregg Metcalf
(July 12,2012)

Lo, and behold I turned the calendar page

while staring up at I and making me age

was the day and date that many do fear

Friday the thirteenth once more was here

Friggatriskaidekaphobia is the real name

of this culprit which receives the blame

For mishaps, accidents, and problems galore

and anything else you can name or explore

Do you know before the nineteenth century?

There was never a mention of this misery

It wasn’t until Gioachino Rossini did expire

on Friday the thirteenth raised any ire

Rossini was surrounded at the very last

by admiring friends who watched him pass

but was Friday really such an unlucky day?

Is thirteen an unlucky number, who’s to say?

Twelve apostles, twelve numbers on the clock

Twelve gods on Mount Olympus’s huge rock

command many to say, twelve tis enough

thirteen is too much for any kind of stuff

What do you think about this day so foul?

Will you mark it with a shout or a howl?

Do you fear so simple a number?

Or at its very notion do you slumber?

For me, it is all silly balderdash

coughs, colds, fevers, or red rash

may come your way with great pain

blaming a number is really insane

Believers place their trust in our Lord

they cling to the promises in his Word

they place no faith in things superstitious

or things that one might call suspicious

Bad luck, good luck, they do not exist

take courage, cowboy up and resist

the notion that any day of the week

would give you reason to fear or freak 

Black cats broken mirrors and such things

like walking under a ladder in the spring

bothers me naught, for I have no fear

when Friday the thirteenth is here