My lad had to memorise a poem for school. Found my old John Hegley book and he chose this one, which I thought was quite touching.

There was a young alien from space
Who entered a three-legged race
He wasn’t very fast
In fact he came last
Because he was a bag of oven-ready chips

Nice Rhyme…

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8v4SyaSVqJc[/video]

I gave my lad this one for his homework
Homework! Oh, Homework!
by Jack Prelutsky

============
Homework! Oh, homework!
I hate you! You stink!
I wish I could wash you
away in the sink.
If only a bomb
would explode you to bits.
Homework! Oh, homework!
You’re giving me fits.
I’d rather take baths
with a man-eating shark,
or wrestle a lion
alone in the dark,
eat spinach and liver,
pet ten porcupines,
than tackle the homework
my teacher assigns.
Homework! Oh, homework!
You’re last on my list.
I simply can’t see
why you even exist.
If you just disappeared
it would tickle me pink.
Homework! Oh, homework!
I hate you! You stink!

That’s great! I’ll show him that as an alternative. 🙂

I must go down to the sea again
To the lonely sea and sky
I left my vest and socks there
I wonder if they’re dry?

The common cormorant or shag
Lays eggs inside a paper bag
The reason you will see no doubt
It is to keep the lightning out
But what these unobservant birds
Have never noticed is that herds
Of wandering bears may come with buns
And steal the bags to hold the crumbs.

C.Isherwood

My Dad gave me this to learn for homework once..

Philip Larkin – This Be The Verse

They **** you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were **** up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

Life is like a cream doughnut.

Without any cream.

Or doughnut.

J. Hegley

Spike Milligan (like molgrips above)

So Fair Is She

So fair is she!
So fair her face
So fair her pulsing figure

Not so fair
The maniacal stare
Of a husband who’s much bigger.

Not forgetting the world’s shortest poem. It’s called Fleas

Adam
‘ad ’em.

Another J Hegley. A poem about an electric chair

The volts
the jolts
the end

A word to husbands
To keep your marriage brimming
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up.
Ogden Nash

There was a young man from Dundee
Who got stung on the leg
By a wasp
When asked if it hurt
He said ‘No, not a lot and it can do it again if it likes’.

(I believe that is Milligan too)

If its limericks you want then I have billions of them:

There once was a bohemian monk
Who fell asleep on an old wooden bunk
He dreamt that Venus
was tickling his elbow
and he woke up covered in sweat

A dashing gay blade from Khartoum
Took a lesbian up to his room
They argued all night
As to which of them might
Do what and to which unto whom

There was a young lady called Bright
Who slept at the speed of light
She went to sleep one day
In a relative way
And woke up the previous night.

mastiles_fanylion – Member
There was a young man from Dundee
Who got stung on the leg
By a wasp
When asked if it hurt
He said ‘No, not a lot and it can do it again if it likes’.

(I believe that is Milligan too)

Max Wall.

Speaking of Larkin:

Why should I let the toad work
Squat on my life?
Can’t I use my wit as a pitchfork
And drive the brute off?

Six days of the week it soils
With its sickening poison –
Just for paying a few bills!
That’s out of proportion.

Lots of folk live on their wits:
Lecturers, lispers,
Losels, loblolly-men, louts-
They don’t end as paupers;

Lots of folk live up lanes
With fires in a bucket,
Eat windfalls and tinned sardines-
they seem to like it.

Their nippers have got bare feet,
Their unspeakable wives
Are skinny as whippets – and yet
No one actually starves.

Ah, were I courageous enough
To shout Stuff your pension!
But I know, all too well, that’s the stuff
That dreams are made on:

For something sufficiently toad-like
Squats in me, too;
Its hunkers are heavy as hard luck,
And cold as snow,

And will never allow me to blarney
My way of getting
The fame and the girl and the money
All at one sitting.

I don’t say, one bodies the other
One’s spiritual truth;
But I do say it’s hard to lose either,
When you have both.