I came home from school that day
Raw from the teacher’s ruler.
“A Dhonnchaidh,” my mother asked me,
What did you do to deserve such a punishment?
I replied, “Bha mi disobedient,”
The word strange and meaningless on my tongue.
She explained I had been mi-mhodhail
And I was no further in knowing
What my crime had been.

We were not encouraged to speak Gaelic
After that.
Gone was the aran, the taigh and the eaglais.
Instead we ate bread, lived in a house and went to church.

And now they tell me:
Two languages a day
Keeps the Alzheimer’s away.
I can still hear my mother’s soft singing,
But there are some memories
I would quite like to forget.

© Christine Laennec

Feb. 18, 2011, “Speaking Two Languages May Delay Getting Alzheimers”

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Check out my blog 'Writing from Scotland' at www.christinelaennec.co.uk

I live in Aberdeen, Scotland, and am a Gaelic enthusiast – amongst other things!

Three rashers a day
is all I can have.
Three rashers a day and five veg.
A small glass of wine is really OK
poured precisely from
unit pipettes.

No fags are allowed
and weed's still illegal,
but three rashers
can grace my plate.
Must it be back
or is streaky permitted?
Does the seventy grams include fat?

I can eat lots of eggs,
they have been found
not guilty,
but a brussel sprout omelette
lacks
je ne sais quoi.

I'll reflect on this guidance
when thought is conducive
after my brandy,
pie, chips
and cigar.

© Malcolm Saunders (Malpoet)


25 Feb 2011 - Government experts urging Britons to eat less meat
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Retired, cantankerous, libertarian and occasionally a poet, I am probably malodorous, but seek to avoid being malicious or malevolent so I vent malapert musings through malpoetry.

Malpoet blog