Tom and Kenne Turner (Tom would have been 77 today.)
POEM ON HIS BIRTHDAY
We are hairy men
who may be thought of a “Twits,”
but I dare say, are not.
Why might you ask?
If you look closely, you will not see
tasty morsels in our beards,
while Twits upon close review
will have tiny little specks
of dried-up scrambled eggs.
So says Roald Dahl,
and he should know
of all the disgusting things
found in the beard of a twit,
but no need to hold your noses.
So, what is it these hairy men
are trying to hide?
Is it an ugly face, you ask?
No, not really,
for we are two guys
possessing good thoughts,
which shone out of our faces
like sunbeams,
so we will always look lovely.
Again, Roald Dahl should know:
‘If a person has ugly thoughts,
it begins to show on the face.
And when that person
has ugly thoughts every day,
every week, every year,
the face gets uglier and uglier
until it gets so ugly
you can hardly bear to look at it.’
Even so, on this sand grain day
in the bent bay’s grave
I celebrate and spurn
what would have been
brother Tom’s driftwood
seventy-seventh wind turned age,
shall seventy-seven bells sing struck.
— kenne
(Some lines in this poem are from Dylan Thomas’ poem, Poem On His Birthday. My brother loved quoting lines from Dylan Thomas’ poems.)
