poems


Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth ~ Pam Ayres

Oh, I Wish I’d Looked After Me Teeth by Pam Ayres

Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth,
And spotted the dangers beneath
All the toffees I chewed,
And the sweet sticky food.
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

I wish I’d been that much more willin’
When I had more tooth there than fillin’
To give up gobstoppers,
From respect to me choppers,
And to buy something else with me shillin’.

When I think of the lollies I licked
And the liquorice allsorts I picked,
Sherbet dabs, big and little,
All that hard peanut brittle,
My conscience gets horribly pricked.

My mother, she told me no end,
‘If you got a tooth, you got a friend.’
I was young then, and careless,
My toothbrush was hairless,
I never had much time to spend.

Oh I showed them the toothpaste all right,
I flashed it about late at night,
But up-and-down brushin’
And pokin’ and fussin’
Didn’t seem worth the time – I could bite!

If I’d known I was paving the way
To cavities, caps and decay,
The murder of fillin’s,
Injections and drillin’s,
I’d have thrown all me sherbet away.

So I lie in the old dentist’s chair,
And I gaze up his nose in despair,
And his drill it do whine
In these molars of mine.
‘Two amalgam,’ he’ll say, ‘for in there.’

How I laughed at my mother’s false teeth,
As they foamed in the waters beneath.
But now comes the reckonin’
It’s methey are beckonin’
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.

And if you want complete joy you can listen to Pam Ayres herself read it Here.

Oh, I Wish I'd Looked After Me Teeth by Pam Ayres

Hawk Roosting ~ Ted Hughes

Hawk Roosting

I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.
Inaction, no falsifying dream
Between my hooked head and hooked feet:
Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.

The convenience of the high trees!
The air’s buoyancy and the sun’s ray
Are of advantage to me;
And the earth’s face upward for my inspection.

My feet are locked upon the rough bark.
It took the whole of Creation
To produce my foot, my each feather:
Now I hold Creation in my foot

Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly –
I kill where I please because it is all mine.
There is no sophistry in my body:
My manners are tearing off heads –

The allotment of death.
For the one path of my flight is direct
Through the bones of the living.
No arguments assert my right:

The sun is behind me.
Nothing has changed since I began.
My eye has permitted no change.
I am going to keep things like this.

Ted Hughes from “Lupercal” 1960

 

Hawk Roosting ~ Ted Hughes

 

 

 


September 28 Is National Poetry Day

September 28 Is National Poetry Day in the United Kingdom. A day designated to enjoy, discover and share poetry. Readers in the United States and other points around the glove  can enjoy it too, just from a distance.

How better to enjoy the change of seasons and the move to the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness than with some poetry

National Poetry Day is “an initiative of the Forward Arts Foundation, a charity that celebrates excellence in poetry and widens its audience.” As a joy for a rare few poetry suffers from so many pre-conceived Ideas that spreading awareness and appreciation is a great idea.  The National Poetry Day website is full of information, suggestions and ideas to jump start your connection with poetry. This year’s theme is FREEDOM. and with poems by Emily Bronte,  Rosa Parks, William Blake and so many other great writers readers will surely find something new to inspire them.

And pop over to Penguin to their Poetry Prescription where you can answer a few questions and you are prescribed a poem to lift you up and make you feel better,

Perfect!


Lines On Ale by Edgar Allen Poe

August 4.

The day that is celebrated around the world as International Beer Day!! When the weather is probably either hot or frazzling. Perfect weather for a long drink. So, in honor  here is a charming little poem by Edgar Allen Poe, the master of horror.

Lines on Ale 

Fill with mingled cream and amber,
I will drain that glass again.
Such hilarious visions clamber
Through the chamber of my brain.
Quaintest thoughts, queerest fancies
Come to life and fade away.
What care I how time advances;
I am drinking ale today.

1848 ~ Edgar Allen Poe (1809-1849)

 

Lines On Ale by Edgar Allen Poe


Robert Burns The Bard Of Scotland

As England has William Shakespeare. Scotland has Robert Burns.

A writer of beautiful language and imagery he wrote hundreds of poems ranging from love, to people to toothache. It is tradition is Scotland to honor him with a Burns Night Supper where he is toasted and remembered for his contributions.

So for Scottish visitors to MLCWO  and in honor of his birthday today, January 25, a little homage to one of the world’s greatest crafter of words.

 

A Red Red Rose

O my Luve’s like a red, red rose,
That’s newly sprung in June:
O my Luve’s like the melodie,
That’s sweetly play’d in tune.


As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a’ the seas gang dry.

Till a’ the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi’ the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o’ life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!
And fare-thee-weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho’ ’twere ten thousand mile!

If this whets your appetite for Burns poetry take a visit to an earlier post with another of his wonderful works.