Hooray for Victorian morality tales
19 November 2007 Jeff Gill
I quite enjoy, as Dylan Thomas put it, ‘pictureless books in which small boys, though warned with quotations not to, would skate on Farmer Giles’ pond and did and drowned’. This poem is my silly homage to the genre. It was read and acted out at our church on Sunday when the theme was the ninth commandment: don’t lie.
I’ve come to tell a story. Once there was a boy.
He had a mother and a father, but he did not bring them joy.
I’ll tell you this boy’s name if you insist that you must know.
His name was Peter Penrhyn Padran Pinnock Ochio.
I’m sad to say that our boy Pete was a spoiled brat,
for his father was a pillock and his mother was – hopeless when it came to discipline.
One day Peter in a strop threw down his hand of cards.
‘I’m sick of losing this stupid game! I’m going to the yard.’
He stomped away to play outside and never came back in.
Tis a tragic tale I’m here to tell – You! Take off your stupid grin.
As Peter Penrhyn stepped outside beneath the leaden sky,
a wicked gleam began to glint in the corner of his eye.
His left eye, in fact, glowed with a light quite malevolent.
‘Aha!’ said Pete, ‘I know just how this day is to be spent.
‘Dear daddy is a pillock, and mum’s far too lenient – ‘I’ll teach them who is boss here, or my name’s not Rupert Grint.’
Of course dear Petey was not the redhead actor from Harry Potter,
but calling him that is what Peter insisted that Mummy and Daddy oughta
do. Now back to the tale and the grin that is spreading
like weeds ‘cross a neglected patch of flower bedding.
Suddenly, without warning Pete Padarn fell to the ground,
and he cried just like this: (loud crying here) What a terrible sound!
‘I am hurt. I am bleeding. I’m in pain. I’m a wreck.
‘Someone has just beaten out of me all the heck.’
‘My dear boy!’ cried the mother. The father said, ‘What?’
‘Some ruffian has just punched our boy in the gut!’
‘Egads!’ cried the dad, ‘Just listen to that.’
‘Are you sure that’s our son, not the neighbor’s tomcat?’
Mum said, ‘Don’t just sit there. Let’s get out and help.
‘My heart’s going to break if I hear one more yelp’
They ran out the door to pick their boy off the floor,
and what met their ears? I’ll tell you: a roar
of laughter. ‘I’ve fooled you,’ howled Pete, the despicable child.
‘You should’ve seen your faces,’ he guffawed with laughter so wild.
Well, their faces weren’t happy, but what could they do?
Pete’s mother spoiled him, and dad had no clue.
They returned to the house with expressions chagrinned,
and Pete kept on laughing as he watched them go in.
‘That was fun!’ was the thought in Pete’s selfish mind.
‘I’d like to see it again. If only life had rewind.’
Let’s fast-forward an hour or possibly two.
Peter tried playing, but all he wanted to do
was to fool the two parents with injuries fake.
To do it again would quite take the cake.
So once more he fell with his face to the ground
and proceeded to cry with a terrible sound:
‘Mum, I’ve been beaten. I’ve been struck with a fist.
‘Seven times did he strike me, not once did he miss.’
Inside the mum screamed, ‘My boy and my baby!’
The father paused and said, ‘Possibly, maybe
‘Our boy has exaggerated the extent of the crime.’
‘Don’t pause!’ shrieked the mother, ‘We haven’t got much time
‘to save our dear boy before he succumbs to his injuries.
‘The attack could have come from a ninja, you see.’
Out the door once more, and what did they find?
Laughing Pete on the floor, and his body just fine.
But his head, you see, was full of bad sickness,
just like his father’s was full of bad thickness.
Back to the house they walked. As they went the parents grumbled.
‘He’s interrupting our telly and our grasp of the show has been jumbled.’
While Peter sat thinking, ‘Can I do it again?’
just around the corner with very wicked grins
were Petey’s 30 schoolmates with all their beating stuff.
‘Revenge!’ they cried,’ We’ve suffered enough.’
We’re sick of Pedro’s shenanigans and the nasty tricking stuff.
As one they descended and fell upon Pete.
‘Alas!’ Peter cried, ‘I’m being killed in the street!’
‘He cried. He yelled. He screamed. He cried more.
But let’s leave Pete for a moment and go inside the door.
Mum’s eyebrow raised a little bit, but daddy made no sound.
‘Dear, can you hear? Our son is yelling he’s being beaten to the ground.’
‘Ignore him love. It’s just another joke at our, his parents, expense.
‘The pleasure we get by ignoring him will be surely quite immense.’
‘I’m sure you’re right,’ his mother sighed, ‘His cries are growing fainter.’
Next month the parents had their dead son’s portrait done by a painter.
There’s a lesson to learn in this poem, like all Victorian tales.
Learn this lesson; learn it well, and it never will grow stale:
If you take the V out of live, you’re left with only a lie.
If your words flip that V at your mum and dad. it’s likely that you’ll die.
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tags: poems,
silly
Things being said about Hooray for Victorian morality tales
On 22 November 2007 Paul wrote:
v funny, ty for sharing :). It’s clear now where i went wrong in life ;)