The Bonnet Bee

SATURDAY CENTUS
http://jennymatlock.blogspot.com
asks us to use the phrase in blue.


THE BONNET BEE

There's a bee in my bonnet, an insistent bee,

That buzzes and buzzes constantly.

Over the years I've loudly cried

'Spelling should be simplified!'

Texting is latching-on right now,

Simplifying and showing us how

We can say the things we need

Merely with sounds that we can read.

'OUGH' need not trip the unwary!

Spelling need not be so scary.

When I think of the endless years

With learning to spell causing groans and tears!

It doesn't have to be that way!

What we see can be what we say.

I proved it in my long career

And now I reiterate it here!

Forty sounds are all we need

To write in a way that others can read.

Purists will say 'Ah, but our T.O.*

Is the only way to go.

The beauty of the Mother Tongue,

Whether read or said or sung

Must be preserved for evermore;

And you have shocked us to the core'.

But the English language has chopped and changed,

Altered and wildly rearranged;

Picked up foreign bits here and there

Over the years, with a certain flair.

It's a bastard language, refined or coarser;

Or we'd all spell the same as Chaucer!

There's so much more that I could say

But........it doesn't have to be that way!

* Traditional Orthography

*

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WHAT I WANT

I want for nothing! What a claim!

There's nothing essential I can name!

I'm one of the world's most fortunate few;

In every hundred maybe one or two!

The earth is full of folk in need,

And I need nothing! Bliss, indeed.

I'm clothed, I'm fed, I'm free to speak;

I'm healthy, save for a minor creak!

I've a lovely family near at hand;

I live in a bounteous, kindly land.

I want for nothing! Not quite true.

I have two needs; yes, only two.

I find it hard to feel truly blessed

While millions and millions are repressed,

Hungry, homeless, not treated fairly,

Scraping a living, and that but barely.

As soon as I feel gratitude

For my cosy bed and tasty food

The vision of 'want' invades my mind.

I want what I have for humankind.

And the second 'want' applies to me.....

No big deal.......

Immortality!

*