I was ten years old when I discovered this, via a neighbour. Highly complex poetry in English was hard to understand at that point, not that it was necessarily a bad thing. Thank you for introducing me to poetry in the English language, Shel.
SHAKING
Geraldine now, stop shaking that cow
For heaven’s sake, for your sake and the cow’s sake.
That’s the dumbest way I’ve seen
To make a milk shake.– Shel Silverstein.
My poor grasp of English really made me feel for Geraldine. I took things pretty literally in those days too.
Natalia A. 
That’s adorable. Poor Geraldine. Poor cow. Poor little Natalya.
Love Shel Silverstein. I just blogged about a poem of his that captures my mood right now. The man was a genius.
The cow is the real victim.
The illustration, of course, makes that clear. Geraldine appears to be a normal-sized young girl, but she is nevertheless holding the cow above her head and shaking it earnestly. It looks rather worried and completely uncertain what to do with its legs.
Thanks for reminding me of Silverstein 🙂
there’s a funny commerical like this out there for Carls Jr milkshakes!!
I’m also a big Silverstein fan– glad you got exposed to his writing.