Dads poetry

My Dad was born in 1938. He moved around in his first couple of years to avoid the risk of serious bombing. He was born in a Garrison town. He ended up not far from there, in a place called Kelevedon in Essex, where he spent many evenings sheltering from bombs anyway. He remembered the moment when it was suddenly not exciting anymore. There was a reality behind it. He remembers the V1s and the V2s. The anti- aircraft guns on the streets. The tractors hauling tanks. He remembers the rationing and the worry. He has carried that. The worry. He also carried the desire to create something and over the years’ he has written many novels, and reams of poetry. None of it published. A lot of it carries the weight of those worries and those that came after.

But other poems make me giggle. You can hear a mans voice in his written words. I can hear Dads.

Not all politically correct probably, (“Porky porky porky pie, makes you fat and then you die…”) but we used to laugh as kids and recite them anyway (that one, when we were standing in the supermarket).

Another one which we loved and which even smallest can recite is written below.

I would like to introduce Mr. Richard Whyard, 87, A wonderful poet and writer. And Dad.

POGO DANCING CAUSES SPINAL INJURY (Newspaper report)

Penguin on a pogo stick! Penguin on a pogo stick!

-it seems a most unlikely trick.

B O I N G , B O I N G , B O I N G,

It bounces along , singing the penguin pogo song:

“I am the bird of Antartic Clime

pogo dancing all the time;

Over the ice floes , mile on mile,

I ‘boing’along with lots of style;

on an on, through storm and blizzard,

Oh, pogo dancing is so wizard!

Sod that stuff about the spine-

It may hurt yours, but never mine!”

He meets a vet, who says “Look here,

You’ll harm your spine, that’s what I fear.

Penguin upon a pogo stick?

What a crazy trick! – one single slip,

And you’ll be a quite a lot less frisky

and probably all slipped-disc-y.”

But through the hail, and storm, and thunder,

It bounces on and across tundra.

Then , bounding through this dismal space

It spies a little eating place:

Now though unmoved by weather grim,

Penguins are quite frankly, pretty dim;

In fact , they really have no clue,

and seeing the notice Penguin Stew,

“How nice, how very nice,” thinks he,

“A dish prepared for little me!”

So , boing! he bounces through the door….

And, Wham! he’s laid out on the floor,

Then slammed into a damn’ great pot

And roasted: Penguin, stick, the lot!