Being a new boy on the sphere, I failed to read the rules properly and I fear I may have had my wrist slapped by Admin for putting a poem of mine in the wrong place. To be fair it was in connection with a parody of Philip Larkin by Adrian Mitchell.
So perhaps I should post it here instead.
It could be worse
They tuck you up , your mum and dad.
You hardly notice, but they do.
They wrap you in the dreams they had
And pray they may come true for you.
For they were tucked up in their turn
By generations, kind or rough,
Who whether faltering or firm,
Did something right, or good enough
Man hands mortality on to man.
It's yours in sickness and in health.
Pass it on as best you can.
And, doing so, become yourself.
As I said on the
other thread (it's under "general conversation" and is called "Adrian Mitchell parody of Larkin"), I wrote my counterargument to Larkin as a new father in 1997, quite unaware that other proper poets such as Mitchell had done something similar. There now seems to be quite an industry knocking out alternative versions of Larkin's "
This be the verse". eg The Spectator competition a few years ago.
Although I was quite pleased with my version, When I later read Mitchell's poem, I thought his was so much better. Well, of course it was. Here is the version of his parody that I had by heart (but see
other thread).
This be the worst (Adrian Mitchell)
They tuck you up, your mum and dad,
They read you Peter Rabbit, too.
They give you all the treats they had
And add some extra, just for you.
They were tucked up when they were small,
(Pink perfume, blue tobacco-smoke),
By those whose kiss healed any fall,
Whose laughter doubled any joke.
Man hands on happiness to man,
It shines out like a sweetshop shelf
So love your parents all you can
And have some cheerful kids yourself.
Comparing the two, I love his because, whereas mine is an argument that follows a plodding line of reasoning, his argument is based on images that are immediate and really grab you (in fact, "shine out like a sweetshop shelf") and so he makes a much more convincing, joyful case. The moral I take away is that there are clever parodies and there are parodies that can become genuine poems.