Happy Families

Hello PL’s!

I thought by now I’d be posting about poetry gigs and all sorts of live events. Well, as we all know, that cannot be the case.

Hands up who thought this Lockdown would all be over by now! I know I certainly did!

So that can mean only one thing! Looking in the Poetry Cupboard!

And look what I found – aren’t they lovely? Now, when playing this game, who didn’t hanker for the glamorous wife, the suave husband or the perfect children in their hand? Only to get some Bore family?! Happy Families could be so loaded with undercurrents of frustration…..

So, I’ve penned a poem about that notorious childhood card game Happy Families.

Happy Families

I always wanted Mrs Daub, the artist’s wife

But I only ever ended up with Mrs Chop,

the unprepossessing Butcher’s spouse,

her rotound red face would glare at me

But Mrs Daub looked at me gently,

a blush appearing on her delicate cheeks,

her ponytail so flawless, her classic

beauty passed onto her perfect children

To complete the picture, Mr Daub

was extremely handsome,

his artist’s smock immaculate,

a black beret pert on his head.

Mr Chop, Mr Chip and Mr Wood

were exceptionally grim.

This was my card game! Why

couldn’t we be like the Daub’s?!

My older cousin snorts – she implies

Mrs Daub has red cheeks from

going round the back of the

timberyard with Mr Chip!

And that the Daub children

were going to Borstal.

And Mr Daub secretly drank!

If you look at them closely, she says,

they’re all bloody miserable.

There’s no such thing as a

perfect family, she sneers.

When was she going home?!

Of course, the miserable cow was right, perfect families only exist in TV shows. However, my cousin would have put a damper on things anyway. A Christmas spent with an older, worldier, miserable cousin can last an awful long time! Especially when they violate my favourite game!