A MOM

Oh, I pushed! Held them. Spent, too!
Gave them my heart, my fine boy and girl.
See! One, dark hair, the other, cute curl!
Yet thievish time passes, fate insists.
Family ties end, even this.

The Nativity (A school play)

Scene: A poor, lowly old stable, on a star-studded, frosty night. Inside, beside a few odd cows, sits a young mother, cuddling a new infant.

Enter Joseph, his head held high, (how bold and proud!) tripping over his long, dingy, faded outfit.

"Oh, and how is our dear baby son, anyway?"

The diminutive Mary lifts an angelic face to his, the light turning her hair to a glowing, holy halo.

"Oh, he's been a right little bugger all day long."

MAN

Oh dear! This is no lullaby, I see. SHEEP is a shocker. A dark, disturbing song by Pink Floyd, from 'Animals'. The album generally, rages about joyless materialism, and attacks the (Tory) government. It echoes the Orwell fable, Animal Farm. The whole doleful theme compares human behaviour to that of three animals.

The SHEEP (us?) are okay. The downtrodden masses, who co-operate, get 'fleeced' by the others: pigs, the no-good, hypocritical dictators, and dogs, who are greedy, money-grubbing cutthroats too.

The unfortunate SHEEP huddle together and meekly await slaughter. But then, revenge! As if awoken from eternal sleep, they revolt in rage and kill the dogs. The only humour (?) is in the irreverent version of the Twenty-Third Psalm. The butchery seems too horrendous.

But the song was written twenty-five long years ago, another era. And admittedly, the authors had intended to shock. We say things were different then, anyway. Yet I do wonder whether all their outlandish words have any relevance today. Oh, look; do we see so much hate at home, anywhere, today? Do we allow men to murder the weak? We're all equal, aren't we?

Can we believe the late Orwell? 'War is war. The only good human being is a dead one.'

Heigh-ho.

I've a feeling most of us need help to understand this nonsense; get the yolk, so to speak. If we have a gander at some of Spooner's stuff (he transposed letters) we should get the idea more easily. It's just a fantasy, a spoof fable.

There was once a goose, which laid one fine gold egg each day, making the owners rich. That featherbrained couple grew too greedy, though. Thinking the goose was gold inside, they killed the poor thing to cut it open. But no joy.

The goose perished; they flapped. No fortune to spend now: guess they felt gutted. The poor goose too!

So then, we see the moral of this tale is: it's no good to go looking a gift-horse in the mouth!

But that's a stuther nory.

I mean a poet balancing dictionary letters makes this humble game such fun!