Museum Manoeuvres

Mum wouldn’t buy me those plesiosaur pants,

‘Won’t get them, darling, not even a chance,

don’t need them, what’s more they cost quite a lot-

big boy like you’ and such mummy-rot,

so we fingered some books in the shop

until she was tired and ready to drop.

 

Next time, Dad took me, it started to rain

and water squelched into my trainers again,

I cried till snot dribbled out of my nose,

squeezed off my trainers and wiggled my toes,

‘Help me, Daddy!’, I said. ‘Don’t let me catch flu,

I’ll die from a cold and then Mum will blame you!’

 

Dad was now worried, I made my next move,

as passing the shop I gave him a shove.

‘Dad’ I said, ‘look, quick, behind those old rocks!’

So now you can check out my stegosaur socks.

Previously Published at Dirigible Balloon

 

AUTHOR

David Bleiman

David is a grandfather and poet living in Edinburgh. He loves to write across the languages and his first pamphlet, This Kilt of Many Colours (Dempsey & Windle, 2021) is a multilingual mixter-maxter in English, Scots, Spanish and Yiddish. This celebration of David's Jewish heritage includes the prizewinning Trebbler's Tale, written in a partly excavated but largely reimagined lost dialect of Scots-Yiddish. With the sense of humour of an overgrown schoolboy, David is now writing childish poems for himself and other children.

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