This is an old children’s rhyme –
written by some old children back in the day.
And it goes something or nothing like this:
.
‘Nobody loves me,
everybody hates me,
Just because…
I am a poet.’
.
Those were such simple times then;
when a poet could be stoned to silence
for the purveying of their awful rhymes.
I saw a pie in a magazine a cookery magazine so I bought that mag I carried home the magazine and a 5p bag I saw that in the pie recipe there there are four and 20 black and white birds I stopped and I did stare black and white birds baked in a pie oh no no no no no why when the pie seems to be opened the birds will begin to sing there’s a thing I still think it’s cruelty to bake for and 20 black and white birds in a pie I have to write and ask the magazine why
—//—
I saw a pie in a magazine
a cookery magazine,
so I bought that mag,
I carried home the magazine in a 5p bag;
I saw that in the pie recipe there were four and twenty black and white birds—
I stopped and I did stare…
‘black and white birds baked in a pie!’
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, why?
When the pie seems to be opened,
the birds will begin to sing – there’s a thing.
I think it’s cruelty to bake four and twenty black and white birds in a pie –
I just have to write and ask the magazine why.
As I was,
yet again,
going to St. Ives,
I saw a man
collecting leaves,
he said he had
most every leaf,
that ever there was,
I showed disbelief,
until he showed me his collection;
‘At least’, he said,
‘A select selection.’
I was amazed
by what I’d seen,
a leaf of brown,
and one of green,
he said he kept the rest at home,
and topped them up
when he did roam.
As I was going to St. Eve’s
I met a man
It was St. Eve
We’d got our wires crossed and each was going to the other’s place.
It was lucky we met…
Otherwise I’d have got to his
And he’d have got to mine
And we’d both have been out!
And if we’d then cussed a bit for a while and then started walking back…
What if we’d met then
As I was walking from St. Eve’s
And St. Eve was walking back from mine?
And what if we had missed each other on the way back
As well as on the way out?
What then?
Graeme Sandford 