Skip to main content

Slugger Mugger Poem


I have gained so much wicked delight creating an imaginary beast to be feared and loathed -and then writing a poem where this  creature became a central character in the telling. 

This is why I refer to the 'making' of poetry. Words and ideas are rehearsed and rolled around in the writer's mind before they emerge. You want them to fit the mood of the poem. You want the best words you can imagine to land on the page.

A lot of inward chuckling accompanied my writing of this poem.  I was also enjoying myself. Talk about conflicted. I feel this is my Frankenstein moment. This is my cautionary tale. Hope you like it. 

And, if you don't eat your greens- be afraid, be very afraid!

Slugger-Mugger

The Slugger-Mugger’s coming
Slugger-Mugger
Slugger-Mugger
The Slugger- Mugger’s coming
Sliding in on slime

The Slugger- Mugger’s coming
The conditions are just right
The moon is hidden by the clouds
There’s very little light

The Slugger- Mugger’s on the way
To your neighbourhood
Please don’t bother hiding
It won’t do you any good

The Slugger- Mugger’s searching
For kids who don’t eat greens
-they leave them on the plate
They hide them in their jeans

Spinach, peas and broccoli
Parsley, lettuce and beans
Shunned by fussy eaters
-such distressing scenes

The Slugger-Mugger will find them
It’s only a matter of time
The Slugger-Mugger’s ready
To splatter them in slime

Sticky-icky green slime
And Slugger-Mugger spit
It takes days to remove it
You need a cleaning kit

The Slugger-Mugger’s coming
Consider this a warning
If you don’t eat your greens
You might look slimy in the morning

The Slugger-Mugger’s coming
Sliding in on slime
If you refuse to eat your greens
You are running out of time

Slugger-Muuuggggerrrr…

Alan j Wright

Image result for Slime monster

Comments

  1. I think I'll send this to my brother who (long ago) was finally caught hiding the greens (especially peas & green beans) on a small platform under the table. They had been there a long time! Oh! You've shown slugger-mugger' attacks with glee, but I love those greens; he won't get me! Fun, Alan!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As you will appreciate Linda there is often a small degree of fact in fictional accounts, and so it is here. Glad to hear you are safe. I too eat my greens.

      Delete
  2. Ha--your poem made me laugh! Lots of fun.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A laugh is good for us Buffy. Glad you enjoyed my Friday poem.

      Delete
  3. Ha! I was just about to tell the tale of my sister hiding peas on a ledge under the table - only to read that Linda had a near identical tale! Thanks for the laugh and the memory.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Such stories point to the devious things we did to avoid those foods we could not abide as children Sally. Glad it gave you a laugh.

      Delete
  4. Phew - I'm safe now, though as a green-phobic child I was probably just moments away from a slugger-mugger attack! ;-)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Slugger Mugger spit! Ugh! That's enough to make a kid pull the veg out of their pocket and give it one more try.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I can see why you chuckled as you wrote this one. I laughed as I read it!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Kay. I did very such making making this poem, so it pleases me to think others are also getting a laugh form it too.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Poetry Inspired by Images and Objects

There are many ways pictures and photographs can be conscripted to support the writing of poetry. Allow me to share a few ideas with you: Old photographs are a great source of inspiration. Cynthia Rylant explored this idea with great success in her book 'Something Permanent' where she employed the Depression era photographs of Walker Evans to add a new voice to the starkness to the lives of people experienced under extreme circumstances. I have used this strategy to spark many individual poems. In ' I Bet There's No Broccoli On The Moon,' I used a photo I had taken in 2004 while living in New York to inspire a poem. The poem was based on a story related by a friend who grew up in New York.  I regularly combined poetry and pictures in my writer's notebook, drawing on inspiration from the photograph and my personal memories. We can also utilize existing cartoons and illustrations to create ekphrastic poems. I frequently use the illustrations of Jim Pavlidis to co...

Peter Dixon -Teabag Poem

Today I'm highlighting the poetry of Peter Dixon. Peter Dixon was not just a poet. He was a performer, educationalist and artist.   He grew up in London during WW2, and as a boy his schooling was far from successful. He struggled with spelling and the understanding of word, form and grammar, so he tended to write secretly at home, drawing and writing of things largely ignored by schools.   Despite this difficult phase of his life, Peter eventually became a school teacher and then a senior lecturer in education. It often mystified him as to how all of this came to pass. As a teacher, he strived to be unbiased and did not neglect the children who experienced learning challenges.   Peter Dixon became a full time children’s writer and educational consultant. His first book was published in 1978. Whilst living in Winchester, Hampshire, with his family, he   contributed to over 100 poetry anthologies and had seven collections of his own work published including Grow Your O...

Poetry Friday 'Storm On The Island' Seamus Heaney

Given the fact that we recently celebrated St Patrick's Day, it seems appropriate that I take this opportunity to continue the Irish focus and recognize one of Ireland's leading literary figures... Seamus Heaney was born in County Derry in Northern Ireland in 1939 and died in 2013. He became a multi award winning poet. His first collection of poems, 'Death of a Naturalist' appeared in 1966 and helped to establish Heaney as one of the major poets of the 20th century. From that first anthology, I have chosen 'Storm On The Island.' This poem tells us about the stoic resistance of people and structures to an incoming storm. The island is not named. Poetic scholars believe this is a poem that can be taken literally, as a monologue on the life and attitude of island people facing a storm, or it can be understood as a  metaphor of political struggle on the island of Ireland. Heaney knew both worlds.  The poems of this first collection are grounded in the soil...