Question

Listen to the poem.
 Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth,
And spotted the perils beneath.
All the toffees I chewed,
And the sweet sticky food,
 Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.

I wish I'd been that much more willin'
When I had more tooth there than fillin'
To pass up gobstoppers.
From respect to me choppers,

 And to buy something else with me shillin'.
When I think of the lollies I licked,
And the liquorice all sorts I picked,
Sherbet dabs, big and little,
All that hard peanut brittle,
 My conscience gets horribly pricked.

My mother, she told me no end.
'If you got a tooth, you got a friend.'
I was young then, and careless,
My toothbrush was hairless,
I never had much time to spend.

Oh, I showed them the toothpaste all right,
I flashed it about late at night,

But up-and-down brushin'
And pokin' and fussin'

 Didn't seem worth time-I could bite!
If I'd known, I was paving the way
To cavities, caps and decay,
The murder of fillin's
Injections and drillin's,

 I'd have thrown all me sherbet away.
So I lay in the old dentist's chair,
And I gaze up his nose in despair,
And his drill it do whine,
In these molars of mine.

"Two amalgum," he'll say, "for in there."
How I laughed at my mother's false teeth,
As they foamed in the waters beneath.
But now comes the reckonin'
It's me they are beckonin'
 Oh, I wish I'd looked after me teeth.
About the Poet
Pam Ayres (1947- ) is a contemporary writer, a great entertainer who writes and performs
comic verse. She started writing poems and verses as a hobby and has appeared in every
major TV show in the U.K. She has published six books of poems, and cut seven record
albums including a collection of 50 best known poems.

Answer 1

Do it yourself