An Englishman's Castle......

If it's true an Englishman's Castle is his home

it will of course have some kind of throne.....

a fireside armchair in front of the TV

where he'll gawp, and eat, and drink his cup of tea

(and maybe a pint or two which makes him want to pee)

......another great throne of course is the loo

where he'll read the paper whilst doing a poo

on the hardest of seats he'll happily sit

oblivious to odours from his brace and bit*

reading for hours - because he's a true Brit.

©  Sonya Katasheva  2013

Author's Notes:  This poem just came to me when I remembered my father the other day and how he used to spend at least an hour sitting on the loo reading his paper!! I wonder if reading on the loo is a British thing? Maybe other cultures do it too.

"Brace and bit" is Cockney for "shit".

"Toilet reading is a common and benign habit. It is involved with a longer time spent in the toilet. It seems to be more for fun and not necessarily to solve or due to medical problems." http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2982.2008.01204.x/abstract

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/oct/21/reading-on-the-loo-study

parsley darlin'

thirteen kids

no mean feat

fifteen actually

two died young

life is hard

mouths to feed

bodies to clothe

feet to shod

(hand-me-downs never look good)

rising early

house is cold

furniture bare

floorboards creek

light the fire

....need the loo

shared loo outside

stinks inside

(freezing in there too)

washing to do

boil the water

scrubadubdub

wring them in the mangle

sweating face

aching arms

chapped hands

hang the washing out

(let's hope it doesn't rain)

dinner to cook

skin the rabbit

rabbit stew

skin the veg - carrots and potatoes

in the yard

parsley grows

grab a handful

adds some flavour

(along with some salt and pepper)

chopping parsley

dishevelled lad

"wot's that mom?"

"it's parsley darlin'" she said

off he runs

down the shop

with a penny

to buy some pop

(and a couple of lollipops)

days pass by

drab routine

day in day out

always the same

another rabbit

more rabbit stew

dishevelled lad

there again

(watching the skinning)

watches intently

his mother works on

dishevelled lad

knows something's missin'

trying to think

he goes in the yard

sees the herb

- it's parsley darlin'!

(that's what's missin')

picks some sprigs

runs into his mom

hands her a bunch

"don't forget the parsley darlin'"

......don't forget the parsley darlin', darlin'.....

©  Sonya Katasheva  2012

Author notes: Based on a true story: my father is the child and his mother is my grandmother. Set in the back-to-back slum houses of Birmingham, UK in the 1930s where the people were very poor and often had very large families. This is my own style – experimenting with arrhythmic timing etc – just fun to write :)

Image:  Public Domain (www.walktheworld.org.uk)