Do you look your age? Comical poem number 772 by Angela Lansbury

 

Angela Lansbury.

Do you sincerely look your age

When you're out having too much fun?

When you're so drunk you tell your age 

Kind strangers lie  - 'You look so young!

'Your birth certificate told lies!'

You know you're old when your dog dies

When grandpa dies and no-one cries

Great grandchild shrugs, the widow sighs

Babies are born wrong years and days

Babes should smile, sleep all the time

They don't behave in baby ways

Ungrateful, cry all night, wake, whine

Some of them look like old bald men

When you undress them, fountains go

Some babies small like opium dens

How would I know.! Just guessed - don't know

Then when teens grow and want a drink

They lie about their real birth age

They do not look the age you think

Drive, accidents, get in road rage

Then when they reach the age of thirty

People say they still look twenty

When they reach the age of forty

People say they look like thirty

When they reach the age of fifty

Nifty people say, you look forty

When they reach the age of sixty

People say you look like fifty

When you reach your seventies

People say you look like sixty

If a few do not believe it

They never say it's like it is

Then when you reach seventy nine

You're still having a great time

But when you reach the age of eighty

Your new stage is 'past my bed time'

Sadly the mirrors do not lie

And you do not fit in your clothes

Too fat to walk, belly balloon

Or skeleton thin, gone 'too soon' friends die

Your hair falls out, your legs give out

You need to wear reading glasses

You grow deaf, people say, 'Don't shout'

Younger folk stop making passes

And ageless singers who took drugs

Have faces like maps, full of wrinkles

Now look like bugs living in fugs

Can't keep it up, keep needing tinkles

Fond grandchildren will run away

When they need you on reaching teens

It's time they heard what you should say

But you daren't tell them what you mean.

-ends-

Preventing And Moulding Mold. Comical poem 764 by Angela Lansbury

THEN - FIFTIES HEALTH

A single widow in the Fifties

A German refugee, with white hair

Europeans open their windows daily

She did, too, each morning, for fresh air

Took tea outside in the open air

Left a mould-free flat to unheeding heirs

Her Fifties beds and chairs had space below

Advantages Brits forgot, didn't know why nor care

NEXT - HOUSES LIKE GRENHOUSES

Then came the joys of central heating

Double glazing, and big meetings

Cold floors, draughty homes, we'd rather forget

Buy thick drapes, duvets, and wall-to-wall carpet

Outside, rainwater pours down ivy leaves

Inside, you breathe out water when you breathe

You exercise, cough, blow your nose

You wash lots of the dishes, bedding, clothes

Every adult, child and cat

Each wet umbrella, raincoat, rain hat

Around the bath, under the bathmat

Around the sink, that dripping tap

We bought a big, noisy, dehumidifier

List in inventory. Plug in to check it's working

Overnight fills with water - tenant's shock!

Can't keep emptying it. Unwanted. Storage stock

NOW

Well after the Millennium

The occupants had changed again

Two bedrooms, two tenants became a family of five

Suffered mould. Why? That was a surprise

The law has changed yet again

A child's death governments mention

The landlord must: fix problems fast

Advise tenants on prevention!

CAUSE - OBSERVATION - EVIDENCE

The cause of mould is no mystery

Water, in the buildings' history

Black ceilings, from gutter leaks overhead

Skirting boards - rising damp from leaning flower beds

Builders long gone, might have done their best.

Let's walk round, observe, an easy test

Blocked drains and flooding bring more pain

Report quickly. Landlord paints. All do your best

You're spreading water everywhere

Every time you wash your hair

Every time you flush the toilet

Under the rim, how often d'you clean it?

You shut the windows when it's cold

Windows steam up, water makes mould

The mould will give you colds and coughs

Asthma, worse, carries small kids off

OUTSIDE MOULD CAUSE And COURSE

A damp course, horizontal line

Walk outside, foot high, you'll see it

Unless the plants touch bricks above

Gardeners should cut, agree it

ANALYSE & DECIDE ACTION

What causes moisture and mould? You must decide

Is it from outside, or inside?

If you see drips or mould, warn landlords, don't delay 

The longer it's left, the more landlords pay

The leaking radiator burst, turns into a flood

The hall floor mould looks like a river of mud

The maintenance will rise, the exhausted landlord dies

At the end of the day rents rise and drive tenants away

INSIDE - MOULD CURES

Proverbs say a stitch in time saves nine 

Is all that mould their fault - or mine!

Even though nobody's looking

Put lids on saucepans when you're cooking

Duvets and cushions away from walls

Clothes in cupboards in a basket

Buy a wall moisture detector

Is it too much to ask it?

I known skiers keep warm in snow

So warm clothes are the way to go

Save money to dispel the gloom

Heat up the person, not the room

Dress for the outside, take a walk

Even the old won't feel the cold

But what if you lot only slouch?

Buy electric blankets, for bed - and couch!

INDOORS CAUSES

You breathe out water through the night

Open the windows in daylight

And keep them open half an hour

Before, during, after a shower

Either banish water, or make spills vanish

Ban wet clothes on the radiator!

Kettles, covered coffee cups, big dinners

A warning sign, misted windows and mirrors

From hot countries, other nations

Aren't prepared for so much rain

Causing so much condensation

Global warming, yet more rain

The Moist Millennium

Double glazing, central heating,

Extended families, big meetings

Instead of people living alone

MOH, and working from home

Paranoid, put lids on glasses of water

Cover coffee, like a lurking Turkish bath attendant watch mirrors for mist

Buy a dehumidifier for each room

Keep adding to the minimise mould action list

INDOORS MOULD CURES

We can't fix the sloping grounds

Rebuilding walls costs thousands of pounds

But now we're wiser, now we know

The simple, cheap answer - open the window!

 

-ends-

Easy rhymes, observation, observe.

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Nits Driving Them Nuts comical poem 525 by Angela Lansbury

 Nits are going around the school

Grand-child hot-headed, now is cool

Parents invested in nit combs

They did not want nits in their homes

Nit comb from bent twigs, about 2700 B C E.Wikipedia.

I asked family round for tea

But now hear they're more sick than me

So it's a case of wait and see

And hope they don't see two, or three

I phoned and heard they used a gel

And for the moment all is well

They'll repeat in a week or two

So nothing's passed to me and you.

When you're widowed you cry a bit

And seek consolation in verse

And think you've faced fate's hardest knocks

There cannot be anything worse

But toothache strikes, and then the flu

Things can get worse, I know it's true

The only thing that I can say

It's good when small things go away

I know I can't bring back the dead

All I ask is a little plus

Get rid of tootheache, and the nits

And vomiting nonovirus

When loved ones are no longer near

I pray aloud for fate to hear

When struck down by an urgent task

Just cure these ills - that's all I ask.

-ends-

My Funny Family (version 7) poem by Angela Lansbury

My Funny Family
by Angela Lansbury

My family is very strange
But they are extremely funny
Some of them are obscenely rich
Won't help us who beg for money

My mother talked for twenty years
But never stopped to pause for breath
Father always smiled and nodded
Nobody noticed he was deaf

Dear Mum didn't think it mattered
After we lost my mother, dear
I asked my widowed Dad, 'Tea? Tea?"
And realised he could not hear.

My uncle played the violin
Better than all, than me or you
Won scholarships, played on cruise ships
A fine player, but stone deaf, too!

Played for radio, BBC
A fine player, not one wrong note
He left me books on lip-reading
He'd been deaf as an old, dead goat.

Poor Uncle's toilet filled with weed
He had no cash for a plumber
Instead he taught one the trumpet
Yet the toilets stank all summer

My son says, "You're the weirdest one
'Cos you write comic poetry!"
I can't see why he thinks I'm odd
My family's more strange than me.

-ends.

 Copyright Angela Lansbury, May 12 2017.

Grammatically it should end more strange than I am but me rhymes. Poet's license.