Friday 14 January 2011

Poems of Contradictions

Oh my God.  It's Friday once again.  And I still have not thought of what to post.  I must post something.  I must.  I must.  What do I say?  What do I blog about?  Arrrrrggghhh.  Nothing. 

*Light Bulb Moment* 

OK.  I thought of something to tell you.

Did I tell you that my husband loves Geoffrey Chaucer?  Yes.  The Father of English Literature.  Husband tirelessly coaxes me into reading his books.  In old English.  But you see, I have a problem reading old English.  I tried.  So hard.  But, for the life of me, I don't get it.  My husband insists, I must read all of Chaucer's books.  Read I must - to master the English language.  So, from time to time, I pretend that I am reading Canterbury Tales.

To state the obvious, my other half loves poetry.  What is really amusing is that he recites silly poems, most of the time in the car, and it doesn't fail to crack me up!  Now, a word of caution, when I say silly, I really do mean SILLY.  Sorry, he does forget Chaucer when he does this.  The poems I am going to share with you are full of contradictions.  What amazes me is that, after so many years, he can still remember these poems from his childhood word-for-word.  He doesn't know where they came from but reckons they may have been passed from generation to generation.  Some of you may have heard them somewhere.

Here goes:

Poem Number 1

It was four o'clock in the workhouse
The snow was falling fast
A barefooted man with shoes on
Stood sitting on the grass
A lady, she gave him an apple
He ate it and gave it her back.

He told her he was in the cinema last Saturday
And he had a front seat at the back.

Poem Number 2

One fine day
In the middle of the night
Two dead men
Got up to fight
They faced themselves
Back to back
Then drew their swords
And shot each other

Okay, don't shoot me *giggling*.  I just thought it would be fun to share them with you.  Isn't it nice to be reminded of those childhood memories - how it was fun to not have a care in the world.  Most of all, to not think of grammatical rules and editing your prose, ha!

Do you remember a song or a poem that you loved when you were a child?

8 comments:

Unknown said...

I loved the poems!!!! These were great!

I'm one that loves to re-read Roald Dahl books. It's like being a kid all over again.

Denise Covey said...

Great poems! I can't imagine what it's like to have a husband who's a Chaucer fan. I find him a bit oblique with all the olde English. This turned into a great post. Something always comes up, doesn't it?

BTW the Publication Party has started on my blog. I'd love it if you could come by and read what authors have to say about getting published. Perhaps you could leave a comment about your aspirations. There are prizes each week. Please come by. The champagne's free!

Denise :)

Old Kitty said...

Wow!! Yay for your hubby for loving Chaucer (he is truly and acquired taste - I couldn't get into Mr C at school at all!!!)And yay for him for remember these fun poems!!

My favourite one has got to be "The Owl and the Pussycat"!!! It is the one poem I can recite from childhood verbatim!! Take care
x

Angela said...

I love how nonsensical your husbands poems are. Cute.

Kazzy said...

My friend named her son Chaucer. Lol

And hooray for silly poetry.

Golden Eagle said...

Those are interesting poems.

Theresa Milstein said...

I missed 3 of your posts? 3?! How can this be? I've checked Facebook and Blogger. I'm sorry!

These poems are great. They remind me of Shel Silverstein's style. I used to read his poems over and over. But didn't memorize them because I can't recite a single one. Though I do recall a Terrible Theresa who took a pancake out of the middle of a giant stack of pancakes.

Now I really can't wait to read your significant other's post!

Lori said...

this is my fav poem and it actually goes like this
one fine day in the middle of the night
two dead boys got up to fight
back to back they faced each other
drew their swords and shot each other
The deaf policeman who heard the noise
ran and shot the two dead boys
if you dont believe this lie is true
ask the blind man he saw it too!!