Nursery Crimes

/ johnlmalone

Waddle waddle

toil and twaddle

the cat’s in its cradle

the boy’s in the bubble






The king’s in the counting house





counting out his money





the red back’s on the toilet seat





in the outdoor dunny










Old Mother Hubbard’s





in lockdown at home





 the poor little dog





still hasn’t a bone










but the cow’s over the moon





the sun’s in the stubble





and Basho’s feisty frog





plops in the puddle

			


	



				
	
			



	
			

			20 thoughts on “Nursery Crimes”		


		
		
    
				
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    What a fun poem! I love all the references.. especially to Basho because that’s a favourite Haiku of mine.  And you have snuck in lockdown and outdoor dunnies too! Quite a mix! Very light with the rhythm and rhyme working beautifully! 
    

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      thanks Worms: I was proud of this: checked the Basho frog reference: there are 30 English translations of this, all wordier than Basho’s Japanese: the best was Ginsberg’s:
      
‘The old pond
      
A frog jumped in
      
Kerplunk !’
      

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        Oh no! 😂😂. That’s not the one I remember. Actually that sounds like a silly maths song you sing while clapping and clicking. It certainly doesn’t sound like a classical Japanese Haiku. But it’s true translation adds complexity. The Chinese have proverbs of only a few characters but the translations are more like two sentences. They’re still beautiful though. I think Ginsberg has removed the aesthetic appeal a bit. Sorry to disagree with you. 🙂
        

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        you put your case very well; I love the Ginsberg haiku as a stand alone poem but agree it lacks the aesthetic nuance of Basho; how I wish I studied Japanese at Uni instead of Latin — but then again I never would have read Catullus or Ovid in the originals 
        

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    Your other readers are more erudite than I. I had no idea who Basho was, other than it sounded Japanese. Although Japan is the homeland of the haiku, Basho could have been anyone from a real world samurai to a mythological creature. *puzzled look* Who knows?
    

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