I was pleasantly surprised this week by one of my patients. After her dental treatment she offered to recite a poem about teeth! I hasten to add that this wasn’t in lieu of payment (lol).
The poem was written by Pam Ayres, an English poet and needless to say, I was enchanted.
Poetry and Dentistry? My thoughts were always ‘never the twain shall meet’. Well, I stand corrected. Snack on this!
Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth,
And spotted the dangers 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 give 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 allsorts 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 the 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 lie 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 amalgam,’ 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.
Taken from the The Works: The Classic Collection 2008.
June 30, 2017 at 6:24 pm
Awesome! This would be good to have framed and displayed at your office!
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June 30, 2017 at 6:25 pm
Good idea!
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June 30, 2017 at 6:39 pm
Just added the YouTube link☺
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June 30, 2017 at 6:32 pm
Amazing one.Thanks for sharing👌
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June 30, 2017 at 6:38 pm
Thank you! I’ve just added the YouTube link
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June 30, 2017 at 6:44 pm
Welcome mam.Yes,I liked it😊
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June 30, 2017 at 10:13 pm
That is a good one. As they say “Ignore your teeth and they’ll go away”
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June 30, 2017 at 10:43 pm
😂😂😂I’ll use this line on my patients 😁
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June 30, 2017 at 11:16 pm
Sounds good for a 6 word story too – will definitely use👍
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July 2, 2017 at 8:44 pm
As a relatively new oner of false teeth, I can honesty say “Oh, I wish I’d looked after me teeth.” 🙂
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July 2, 2017 at 8:45 pm
😂 Good one!
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July 5, 2017 at 8:30 pm
Such truth is there any worse feeling than a toothache seriously…
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July 5, 2017 at 8:31 pm
The pain is like no other 😨
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July 28, 2017 at 5:45 am
I know feeling, literary!
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July 31, 2017 at 9:23 pm
Dental advice through limerick rhyme schemes and humor! I love it! Your poetry, however, makes my teeth feel ashamed.
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July 31, 2017 at 9:43 pm
Thanks for stopping by😊. Just goes to show that poetry can be used anywhere. As for your teeth – cash’ll fix it. It’s your gums you need to watch out for- floss or interdental brushes twice a day and you’ll keep that foundation sturdy😀
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