Buttocks

Eleanor posted :
Quote of the day from my physiotherapist:
“The buttocks really are the root of all evil.”

“The buttocks are the root of all evil”
my physiotherapist said,
“From the minute you’re up in the morning
to when you lie down in your bed,
your buttocks are plotting your downfall
creeping up on you from behind.
I have seen a posterior inducing hysteria
in an inferior mind.”

It bothered me for a moment
but the feeling I’m sure will pass
Just for now though emotion’s beneath me
I don’t want to be seen as an arse.

My Tricycle Has Shrunk

Once more the delightful Olivia points out the mysterious workings of the universe.
Olivia: “Hey! Last time I was on this trike it was bigger! How has it got a bit smaller?”
I am unconvinced her Dad knows this much actual science … but that’s why they invented poetic licence.

The last time I rode this tricycle it was bigger than this I think
Did some master of miniaturisation come along and make it shrink ?
I’ve checked for other changes, I’ve checked its symmetry
I’ve checked both handlegrips and I’ve checked wheels one, two and three

I’ve gone and checked the manual they provide when they deliver
But still I haven’t figured out why my tricycle was bigger
I thought it through I’ve pondered, cogitated, I have thunk
But yet I cannot tell you why my tricycle has shrunk

Perhaps my Mummy’s lying making up some fabrication
Cos she loves me and she’s trying to placate my indignation
But I haven’t heard her offer me one single cause at all
That would tell me why my favourite trike is suddenly so small

At this rate I’ll be riding with my knees up by my ears
It won’t be long before my trike just ups and disappears
I’m worried this affliction though might spread to other stuff
But apart from maybe brothers’ heads – one shrunken thing’s enough

My Daddy says “It could be worse, so stop your mad invective
The expansion of the universe puts it all into perspective”
I can’t tell Dad that’s twaddle I don’t want to be in trouble
But he says that it’s all explained by Mister Edwin Hubble

The universe is growing every minute, every day
And everything that’s in it moves a bit further away
And objects in the distance seem much smaller than they were
That’s why it looks as if my trike has turned out miniature

Then Dad went on to tell me what occurs as it gets older
As the universe expands it keeps on growing ever colder
And in the end each molecule is frozen like an icicle
I wonder though – he never said – what happens to my tricycle ?

I want pickled garlic for breakfast

Inspired (as ever) by the lovely Olivia whose thought this was,
and her mum Eleanor who told us about it …

I want pickled garlic for breakfast
I’ve made it quite clear to my Mum
That she has to get it off Daddy
And I get to eat Allium

My brother has ate all my glitter
My Daddy is hoarding his food
Now Charlie’s a sparklier shitter
And Mum says I’m not to be crude

I said “I just want pickled garlic
Come on Mum it can’t be that hard”
But she went and sided with Daddy
I tried grabbing the jar but was barred

My parents are terribly liberal
Politically they’re both right on
When it comes to my rights over brekkie
I’m telling you though it’s a con

My Mum says I can’t steal the garlic
She’d find out that I had with her nose
It’s olfactory my dear Watson
In the Case of the Lost Stinking Rose

I want pickled garlic for breakfast
I know it sounds bourgeois to say
It’s lack of the pickle that ails me
As I eat my petit dejeuner

In response to John Cooper-Clarke’s poem “Pies”

“What was the fruit ?” I heard jungle drums rumble
Perhaps apple tart or a blackberry crumble
A conniving confection, designed to ensnare
Converts our Miss Rees into Mrs Ridware
(The old) piano man never a vegetable tasted
He went straight for the meat – not a moment was wasted
On vitamins, fibre, plate borders herbaceous
Watch him eating greens ? No, you’d have to wait ages
‘Cos you couldn’t persuade Hamstall to go try a cherry
Or to veer from the course of his path dietary
Until one day daintily tripped on the scene
A finely turned calf, a cut trimmed so lean
So taken was Hamstall, he came over all manic
His defences were down when she mentioned ‘organic’
When she offered him plates of fruit plucked from the vine
He had quite different fruitiness inside his mind
And nowadays Hamstall is not so carnivorous
He’s prepared to eat food which was never viviparous
There’s a look now that all of his friends recognise
A fruit laden contentment that cannot tell lies
There’s the love of a woman who does more than just cook
It takes more than a pie to manufacture that look !

Father Christmas Lives in a Hole

For Olivia (Crawford) whose information this was

Father Christmas lives in a hole
But he isn’t a badger, he isn’t a mole
He lives underground in his Christmassy lair
But I don’t think that Rudolph the Reindeer lives there
No Rudy’s upstairs where reindeer food grows –
That’s where you will find that famous red nose

While under the tundra with present filled shelves
Lives Old Father Christmas with all of his elves
Along with his dog (who’s an old Pomeranian)
They all live together, their home’s subterranean

Their factory’s there too where they wrap all the gifts
which are brought to the surface in two giant lifts
and packed on the sleigh which is ever so large
and is kept in a carefully locked up garage
which only gets opened on one day each year
only on Christmas Eve so the sleigh can come here.

Except on the twenty fourth day of December
The one day a year that he has to remember
Father Christmas is happy to stay underground
His motto on the wall of his grotto is found
“With all, share your happiness, that is your role !
“Lots of Love, Father Christmas, from his home, The North Hole.”