Month: August 2019

Scouse Dummy

When times were tough

We took a bite

Out of our Scouse Dummy

This staple lunch

Was all we had

It was better than our mummy

It’s cheap and cheerful

Comes wrapped up nice

In paper bag and grease

Flaky pastry makes it tasty

You eat it on the streets.

Quite a small and meagre meal

Doesn’t get you fat

When mother wants to shut you up

she says, ‘Have a suck on that.’

It’s all you need to fill the space

That gnaws deep within your belly

‘Til fish and chips

Or beans on toast

In front of soapy telly.

(At this point there are two alternative endings to this poem, depending on whether you like the Sayers or Greggs Scouse Dummy and are environmentally attached or adhered to the area, or not. I pay homage to them both. Just as there are people in the same family who support different football teams, there are people in the same family who have different preferences for the same items of food, but in different eateries/snack bars. For the record, my personal preference is for Sayers).

What is this we eat, upon the hoof?

This golden rod of meaty dregs?

This Scouse Dummy is no mystery

It’s just a sausage roll from Greggs.

(And now for my personal favourite)…

What is this we eat, upon the hoof?

This golden rod of meaty layers

This Scouse Dummy is no mystery

It’s just a sausage roll from Sayers.

Poem by Auntie Winnie

My husband’s Auntie Winnie was a lovely person. She was one of the first people he introduced me to and she warmly welcomed me into her family, twenty seven years ago. She was a much beloved sister, wife, mother and grandmother. Winnie sadly passed six weeks ago. Throughout her life, she was a prolific poet and writer. This was one of her very many poems, which was discovered after her passing.

‘What is it that beholds an air

A footstep on the stair of life

A whispered thought still in my mind

Of what I’ve lost and cannot find

Still I will seek until the day

My melancholy slips away

And when that comes

And heartaches cease-

I will know at last

I’ve found my peace.’

by Winnie Stephenson

My Mind Is A Blank

My mind is a blank

I’m feeling the drain

There’s a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign

Outside of my brain

There isn’t a thought

Inside of my head

I should have stayed tucked up

Inside of my bed

The clever has gone

It’s willow the wisp

The funny and brilliant

Has burned to a crisp

My mind is a blank

There is nothing there

Just tumbleweeds and silence

And a cold vacant stare

The genius has gone

If ever it were

And now in its place

Is a cold vacant stare

The witty has left me

It’s taken a nap

The brain cells have frazzled

As if they’ve been zapped

My mind is a blank

There is nothing to boast

The grey matter fried up

And now it is toast.

Quote Of The Week

‘With their capacity for aggresssion strait-jacketed within a too narrow morality, those who are only or merely compassionate and self sacrificing (and naive and exploitable) cannot call forth the genuinely righteous and appropiately self protective anger necessary to protect themselves.’

‘Jordan Peterson– Twelve Rules For Life