Thursday, August 4, 2011

The Onion Johnnies



WE WRITE POEMS
asks us to comment on a documentary.

THE ONION JOHNNIES

In the long-lost days of my youth
The Onion Johnnies were seen
Riding up and down
The streets of town
And on the village green.
*
We knew they came from  France
For they talked a funny way,
But the hows and whys
We didn't surmise;
And we never asked them to stay.
*
Now, watching the show called 'Coast'
I've discovered who they are.
They're from Brittany,
Just over the sea,
Not really very far.
*
And I've also learned of the ties
Between Britain and that part of France;
How we came to be
Linked by history.....
Just a matter of chance.
*
And it seems they ply their trade
To this day, riding on their bikes.
Their onions are sweet,
And delicious to eat,
They're a vegetable everyone likes.
*
When I was a child, a foreigner
Was someone exceedingly strange.
Now, because of TV,
They're familiar to me.
Sometimes I welcome change.
*

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SKY-GRAPES


Even without the heady blue,
The snow-white clouds in the sky,
The burgeoning grapes show luscious
Tempting us from on high.
And soon leaves will block-out the sky-scape
And grapes will grow greenly below.
Till then let us all be happy
With the Springtime Sky-Grape Show!
*

1 comment:

vivinfrance said...

Rinkly, I missed this at the time because I don't expect the poems here. Your Onion Johnnies brought back memories from my childhood. Probably the last time I saw onw would have been in the 60s, though from "coast" ut would seem they went on a lot longer than that. As a child, I thought all Frenchmen wore the stripey jerseys and the beret - it seemed very strange at the time.