National Poetry Day

[Thracian]

A favourite of mine was John Cooper Clark's I wanna be yours.

Pam Ayres tops my list. I went to see her in a recital at Harlech Castle and she's very expressive and extremely funny. I read an article recently saying she's had a tough time of it but is now back and busy again. A great evening out if you get the chance.

This is a fairly famous poem taken from an old publication "Some of Me Poetry"

Oh I wish I'd looked after me teeth,

And spotted the perils beneath,

All the toffees I chewed

And the sweet sticky food,

Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.

I wish I'd been that much more willin'

When I had more tooth there than fillin'

To pass up gobstoppers,

From respect to me choppers,

And to buy something else with me shillin'

When I think of the lollies I licked,

And the liquorice allsorts I picked,

Sherbet dabs, big and little,

All that hard peanut brittle,

My conscience get horribly pricked.

My Mother she told me no end,

If you got a tooth, you got a friend,

I was young then, and careless,

My toothbrush was hairless,

I never had much time to spend.

Oh I showed them the toothpaste all riight,

I flashed it about late at night,

But up-and-down brushin'

And pokin' and fusson,

Didn't seem worth the time - I could bite.

If I'd known I was paving the way,

To cavities, caps and decay,

The murder of fillin's

Injections and drillin's

I'd have thrown all me sherbet away.

So I lay in the old dentist's chair,

And I gaze up his nose in despair,

And his drill it do whine,

In these molars of mine,

"Two amalgum," he'll say, "for in there."

How I laughed at my Mother's false teeth,

As they foamed in the waters beneath,

But now comes the reckonin'

It's me they are beckonin'

Oh I wish I'd looked after me teeth.