Beware of Painkillers

by CD Richards

I took a medication, paregoric,
to help me with a pain that would not go.
It left me feeling giddy and euphoric;
before long I was putting on a show.

I sang a bawdy song in finest voice.
The second time I sang it with a snicker,
and threw in extra words which were quite choice;
which, I must say, did not impress the Vicar.

My rise to fame was simply meteoric,
and soon I was the talk of the whole town.
So then I poured myself a gin and tonic;
I thought that it might help to calm me down.

Instead, I wound up on a table, dancing.
By this time I was feeling quite unwell.
The Vicar's wife, I thought, required romancing;
she disagreed, and threatened me with hell.

In future, if you think I have an ailment,
please take me home and put me straight to bed.
Avoid all drugs which might cause a derailment;
just give me paracetamol instead.

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Today's word: paregoric (adj.) painkilling, analgesic.

My much-treasured Christmas present for 2017 is a book by Paul Anthony Jones: "The cabinet of linguistic curiosities". Each page contains a descriptive story about some obscure or archaic word. It occurred to me it would be a fun exercise to try and write, each day, a poem featuring the "word of the day" from the book.

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A silly ditty

A chapter in the book A Potpourri of Poetic Curiosities

Beware of Painkillers

by CD Richards

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