Really Really Important Poem

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 05:14 PM

Thanks, Metchosin

...all I knew of that 'Marching' one was

Left,

Left,

I had a good job & I

Left...

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 05:13 PM

Toity poiple boyds
Sittin' on d' coib
Eatin' doity woims
A-Choipin' and a-boipin'

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Metchosin
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 03:53 PM

I think mice are rather nice
Their tails are long
Their faces are small
They haven't any chins at all
Their ears are pink
Their teeth are white They run about the house at night
They nibble things
They shouldn't touch
And no one seems to like them much
But I think mice
Are nice.

or

Spring is sprung
The grass has riz
I wonder where the boidies is?

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Deda
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 03:17 PM

Another version, one my Granny used: Left, left, left my wife and Fourteen children
The reason I left, I couldn't go right, right,
Right from the country O-pie-jingles, left
(back to first line)
(Amos may remember this more clearly than I do?)

It was supposed to work that you stepped on your left foot on left and right, right. I probably REALLY didn't need to explain that, duh....

And then there's this one:
Fuzzy Wuzzy was a bear,
Fuzzy Wuzzy had no hair.
Fuzzy wuzzy wasn't fuzzy, wuzzee?

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Metchosin
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 03:09 PM

Paul I remember a song when I was small something like:

I saw Esau
Sitting on a see-saw
I saw Esau with my gal
I saw Esau
Sitting on a see-saw
I saw Esau with my gal.
When I saw Esau
He saw me
And I got so sore
That I got a saw
Oh I got a saw
And I sawed Esau
Off that old see-saw

or something like that....

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 02:55 PM

Mudlark, here's a related "marching" poem I learned in my youth:

LEFT,
LEFT,
LEFT my wife and forty-five children
Home in the kitchen in starving condition
With nothing but gingerbread
LEFT!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: JudeL
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 01:41 PM

One from my childhood:

Ucky Wucky was a worm,
Ucky Wucky liked to sqwirm
got onto a railway line
didn't see the train in time
Ucky Wucky

Jude

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Mudlark
Date: 29 Aug 01 - 01:13 PM

This is one my mom used to recite as she walked along

Left, left, left my wife and 14 childeren, old grey man in a peanut stand, I think I did, left, left....

Right, right, right from the (something), hayfoot, slewfoot, right, right....

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Paul from Hull
Date: 28 Aug 01 - 11:10 PM

This has reminded me of one I knew when I was a kid, though I feel sure there is more of it than this.......Anyone know?

I saw Esau, sitting on a See-Saw,

I saw Esau, & 'e saw me...

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 28 Aug 01 - 06:43 PM

Deda said:

"One of Dorothy Parker's most famous:

"Men never make passes

"at girls who wear glasses."

But to which I think it was Ogden Nash added:

"And girls who are be-spectacled
"Don't often get their nectacled.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Deda
Date: 28 Aug 01 - 02:37 PM

As I was sitting in a chair
I knew the bottom wasn't there,
Nor legs, nor back -- but I just sat
Ignoring little things like that.

(Don't know source.)

One of Dorothy Parker's most famous:

Men never make passes
at girls who wear glasses.

Another source unknown:

A wonderful bird is the pelican
His beak can hold more than his belly can.
He can hold in his beak
Enough food for a week!
I wonder how in the hell 'e can.

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: GUEST,Challis
Date: 28 Aug 01 - 10:50 AM

The Goldfish poem Does anyone know that please?

Supposed to be very very short (and pithy or some such)

Cheers and thanks,

Hille

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: CarolC
Date: 28 Aug 01 - 05:17 AM

The Mennonite cars
Dance a slow ballet
From the church
To the distant countryside.

The dance snakes slowly
Quiet
Blowing white snow-silence
Into the hills.

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Noreen
Date: 13 Aug 01 - 08:03 PM

First Aid in English, Bernard?!

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Bernard
Date: 13 Aug 01 - 04:09 PM

The elephant is a pretty bird
She flits from bough to bough
She makes her nest in the Rhubarb Tree
And whistles like a cow...

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: lady penelope
Date: 13 Aug 01 - 03:56 PM

The Tay the Tay best river on earth
Goes past the ship yards every day
And up and doon te Perth
( It's always got a bed for the night
And it ai in touch wi the banks )

M. MacGonegal

TTFN M'Lady P.

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Aug 01 - 11:33 AM

refresh

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 13 Aug 01 - 03:25 AM

Also atrrib. to McGonagle (but probably by Anon):

The cow is a forlorn beast,
There's nothing more forlorner,
Standing in a field
With a leg at every corner.

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Bill D
Date: 12 Aug 01 - 08:52 PM

THE PLOVER AND THE CLOVER

The Plover and the Clover can be
    told apart with ease,
By paying close attention to the
    habits of the Bees,
For En-to-molo-gists aver, the Bee
    can be in Clover,
While Ety-molo-gists concur,
    there is no B in Plover.

    -- Robert Williams Wood

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: GUEST,genie
Date: 12 Aug 01 - 01:59 AM

Ogden was a Yank, as I recall, so why would he write "parlour"?

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Crazy Eddie
Date: 12 Aug 01 - 01:18 AM

Algy met the bear,
And the bear met Algy.
The bear was bulgy,
The bulge was Algy.

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Firecat
Date: 11 Aug 01 - 04:52 PM

You and your son have got taste Noreen, I'll say that! Which is your favoutir? Mine's Terrible Tudors or Angry Aztecs.

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Noreen
Date: 11 Aug 01 - 03:00 PM

Hi Firecat!

Sausages made out of dog meat?! :0)

Good books, those Horrible Histories, aren't they? My son bought them all as they came out, and I've used them in school too.

Noreen

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: 2feathers
Date: 11 Aug 01 - 11:45 AM

Fuzzy wuzzy wuz a bear Fuzzy wuzzy had no hair Fuzy wuzzy wuzn't fuzzy Wuz he?

Him has went Him has gone Him has left I all alone. Must I always go to he? Can't him never come to me? It can never was.

My mom used to recite:

Whose Izzy is he Is he yours or is he mine? I'm gettin' dizzy Watchin; Izzy all the time.

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: lady penelope
Date: 11 Aug 01 - 06:13 AM

Title : - Meditations of a Tortoise Dozing under a Rosetree at Noon while a Dog scampers about and a Cuckoo calls from a distant Wood.

So far as I can see
There is no one like me.

Soliloquy of a Tortoise on Revisiting the Lettuce Beds after an interval of one Hour while supposed to be sleeping in a clump of blue Hollyhocks.

One cannot have enough
Of this delicious stuff!

Night Thought of a Tortoise Suffering from Imsomnia on a Lawn.

The world is very flat
there is no doubt of that.

By Dr E.V. Rieu.

My Mother had a flit gun
It was devoid of charm
A bit of a flit shot out of it
The rest shot up her arm!

Pam Ayres

(To be read in a scottish accent )

I shot an arrow in the air
It fell te earth I know not where
But wit is mare I dinny care
For I've mare arrows up the stair!

On yonder hill there stood a coo
It must huv moved it's no there noo.

The Mad Maggonegal

TTFN M'Lady P.

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Crazy Eddie
Date: 11 Aug 01 - 02:08 AM

Little Spider the wall, You know you shouldn't be there at all.
Can't you see the wall's been plastered?
Get off the wall you dirty spider!

THE FLY
His maw is dead,
His paw is dead,
SPLAT!
Now he's dead.

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Firecat
Date: 10 Aug 01 - 07:30 AM

Noreen, I recognised that one about the little pig, but I know it as

Little dog
Crossing street
Motor car
Sausage meat.

I got it out of a book called Vile Victorians, by Terry Deary and illustrated by Martin Brown. It's part of the Horrible Histories series!

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: RangerSteve
Date: 09 Aug 01 - 08:42 PM

THE CLAM: Esteemed by gourmets highly, it lives the life of Riley. While you're relaxing on the piazza, that's what you're as happy as a.

O Nash, again.

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 09 Aug 01 - 04:50 PM

Into love and out again
Thus I am and thus I go
Hold your tongue and stay your pen
Well and bitterly I know
All the songs were ev er sung
All the words were ever said
Could it be when I was young
Someone dropped me on my head?
(Dorothy Parker)


Shipbored

That line is the horizon lind.
The blue above it is divine.
The blue below it is marine.
Sometimes the blue below is green.
Sometimes the blue below is white
Foreshadowing a windy night.
Sometimes the blue above is grey
Foreshadowing a cloudy day.
Sometimes a drifting coconut
Or albatross add color but
The blue above is mostly blue.
The blue below and I are too.
(John Updike)


I shot an arrow into the air
I don't know how it fell or where
But strangely enough at my journey's end
I found it again in the neck of a friend.
(Mad Magazine?)


In seventeen hundred and seventy six
A group of American mavericks
Denounced the yoke of tyranny,
The tax on stamps, the tax on tea.
Our fathers felt that they were fit
To tax themselves, and you'll admit
They have done very well at it.
(some magazine read when I was about 11, c. 1960)

Bat Goddess

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: paddymac
Date: 09 Aug 01 - 09:34 AM

Here's one I wrote after a few pints.

A MODEST REVENGE ON KILMER

If I should ever lucky be, I'd be a strapping, sapling tree, Where men and boys would stop to pee, And proudly say it's good for me.

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: GUEST,frances
Date: 08 Aug 01 - 03:58 PM

shortest story in the world
two hunters, one lion
one hunter, one lion
one lion

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: jeffp
Date: 08 Aug 01 - 01:53 PM

A green little chemist
On a green little day
Mixed some green little chemicals
In a green little way.
The green little grasses
Now tenderly wave
O'er the green little chemist's
Green little grave.

jeffp

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: The Walrus at work
Date: 08 Aug 01 - 01:41 PM

Alas for poor Johnny,
For Johnny is no more,
For what he thought was H20
Was H2SO4

But quickly up stepped Johhny's Dad,
A Chemist, bright, was he,
He swiftly dosed his young son up
With CaCO3

I regret that I can't remember the last verse in which Jonny explodes (from generatd gas).

Regards

Walrus

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Kim C
Date: 08 Aug 01 - 01:37 PM

This was composed by my comrade Tammy, a member of my knitting guild:

A naughty knitter named Nelly
Got a number 10* stuck in her belly
Never had it removed
Because it improved
The reception she got on the telly

*that's a big ol knittin needle, for those who don't knit

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Trapper
Date: 08 Aug 01 - 01:22 PM

Tarzan Tarzan through the air
Tarzan rip his underwear
Tarzan say, "Me no care
Jane fix my underwear."

Jane Jane through the air
Jane rip her underwear
Jane say, "Me no care
Boy fix my underwear."

Boy Boy through the air
Boy rip his underwear
Boy say, "Me no care
Cheetah fix my underwear."

Cheetah Cheetah through the air
Cheetah rip his underwear
Cheetah say, "Me no care
Me no WEAR no underwear!"

- Al

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Steve Parkes
Date: 08 Aug 01 - 12:28 PM

As I was letting down my hair
I met a man who didn't care.
He didn't care again today--
I love 'em when they get that way!

Sure, deck your lower limbs in pants,
Yours are the legs, my sweeting;
You look divine as you advance ...
But have you seen yourself retreating?
(Ogden Nash again)

In the well that Father built her
Auntie fell; we must buy a filter.
(Hilaire Belloc?)

Lord [forgotten!] tried to fix the elctric light;
It struck him dead, and serve him right!
It is the duty of the wealthy man
To give employment to the artisan.
(Ditto--please offer corrections if poss.)

Steve

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Lyrical Lady
Date: 07 Aug 01 - 11:42 PM

Another by Ogden Nash ... "To keep your marriage brimming With love in the loving cup, Whenever you're wrong, admit it, Whenever you're right, shut up"

Maybe it'll work ... who knows!

LL

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: GUEST,John Gray / Australia
Date: 07 Aug 01 - 11:26 PM

I think I've put this one up before, but I like it.
I once had a little dog named Ben,
Had nine arseholes, nearly ten,
Wouldn't eat bread - wouldn't eat crust,
But ate apple pie till he fuckin'near bust

JG / FME

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 07 Aug 01 - 11:13 PM

When I was a kidlet, in the late 30s, my aunt Lucille was fond of reciting this one, from HER childhood:

Little Isaac Eisenheimer
Thought he'd be a steeple climber.
Climbed to the top of St. Peter's steeple,
Then fell down and scared some people.
Broke the "-E.R." off his name--
Wasn't that a measly shame?
His father rushed up just in time
To pick up little Isaac Eisenheim!

She would still sometimes recite this at family gatherings, up until her death in her 80s.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Aug 01 - 10:17 PM

...And Then the Prince Knelt Down and Tried to Put the Glass Slipper on Cinderella's Foot

I really didn't notice that he had a funny nose.
And he certainly looked better all dressed up in fancy clothes.
He's not nearly as attractive as he seemed the other night.
So I think I'll just pretend that this glass slipper feels too tight.

By Judith Viorst

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 07 Aug 01 - 05:02 PM

LR, I remember Piet Hein's grooks with awe. They used to appear regularly in Punch sometime in the mid-60s. For instance:

Just beyond perception's reach
I vaguely seem to see
That life is two locked boxes, each
Wrapped round the other's key.

And yet another from Spike, penned years before greenhouse gases had got on to the agenda:

I saw a woman in Kensington Gore
Take her Rolls-Royce to the grocer's store.
All she bought was a dozen eggs.
When I go shopping, I travel on legs.

This one was accompanied by two sketches labelled WRONG and RIGHT. The first was a cardboard cut-out Roller of the conventionally wheeled variety, the second was another cut-out Roller, but this time fitted with four rotating lags, front and aft.

Can't resist squeezing in just one more from Spike:

As they placed the crown upon his head
Prince Charles turned round and said
"I suppose this means that mummy's dead?"

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Bernard
Date: 07 Aug 01 - 04:46 PM

Today I saw a little worm
A-wriggling on his belly
Perhaps he'd like to come inside
And see what's on the telly?! Milligan...

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Noreen
Date: 07 Aug 01 - 04:40 PM

Piggy on the railway
Picking up stones,
Along came an engine
And broke piggy's bones.
"Oh," said Piggy,
"That's not fair!"
"Ha!" said the engine driver,
"I don't care!"

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Noreen
Date: 07 Aug 01 - 04:22 PM

Reading these keeps bringing back childhood poems such as

Little pig
Crossing street
Rushing car
Sausage meat

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Kim C
Date: 07 Aug 01 - 02:00 PM

Spaw! I haven't heard that one in eons!!!!! :-D

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Metchosin
Date: 07 Aug 01 - 01:31 PM

Last night I saw upon the stair
A little man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
Oh how I wish he'd go away.

and

How I loves them little mousies
Mousies what I loves to eat
Likes to bites they tiny heads off
Nibbles on they tiny feet.

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Barbara
Date: 07 Aug 01 - 12:01 PM

"Little Willies" were common in the US back in the 20's and 30's maybe? I learned several from my parents and grandparents.
Little Willie, dressed in sashes
Fell in the fire and burnt to ashes
After while the room grew chilly
Because no one wanted to stir up Willie

Willie playing by the track
Didn't hear the engine squeal
Now the train is coming back
Scraping Willie off the wheel

There's another varianton the train track theme whose last two lines are:
The neighbors were surprised to find
How travel broadened Willie's mind

My mother's favorite: Little Willie's dead and gone
We'll never see him more
For what he thought was H2O
Was H2SO4

And for silliness, I always liked this Robert Frost poem:

I stepped on the toe
Of an unemployed hoe
It rose in offense
And struck me a blow
On the seat of my sense
I must say it dealt
Me a blow that I felt
Like malice prepense
Now wasn't there a rule
that a weapon
should be turned into a tool?
But what do I see?
The first tool I step on
Turns into a weapon.

Blessings,
Barbara

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: Bill D
Date: 07 Aug 01 - 11:42 AM

The turtle lives 'twixt plated decks,
Which practically conceals it's sex.
I think it clever of the turtle,
In such a fix, to be so fertile.

Odgen, of course

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: LR Mole
Date: 07 Aug 01 - 11:38 AM

As to "parlour floor":my Readers' Encyclopedia says Ogden Nash was born in America, so I don't imagine he would have added that old-world "u" to parlor (or as we pronounce it around here,pahlla.)
Piet Hein wrote a number of poems, called "Grooks". A fad at one time.
And of a poet mentioned already, this from Dorothy Parker:
I'd rather flunk my Wasserman test
Than read a poem by Edgar A. Guest.

Subject: RE: BS: REALLY REALLY IMPORTANT POEM
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Aug 01 - 11:24 AM

My sister Lauras bigger than me
And picks me up quite easily
I cant lift her I've tried and tried
She must have something heavy inside

Spike Milligan