One night, while I lay in bed, I found myself tossing and turning, not being able to sleep. As I lay there counting sheep, a poem kept ringing in my head, ‘Brother and Sister’ by Lewis Carroll, who also wrote the famous ‘Alice In Wonderland’. I had actually read it earlier on, and it became my new favourite poem! Becoming inspired to write my own twisted version, I quickly pulled out my mini notebook from under my pillow (yep, I keep a notebook under my pillow) and penned down my ideas! Here’s the finished product, which is about a brother and a sister with a bittersweet relationship, which, as the title implies, is mostly bitter, but not so sweet…
Mostly Bitter, Not So Sweet…
A Poem By O. Mukhtar O. Mukhlis a.k.a The Pawsome Lion
There was once a boy, a boy and a girl,
And that little girl made her brother hurl
“Oh sister!” he said,
“I must rest my head!
So I’m calling Doc Crest
To get rid of you pest!”
“Such rudeness, boy!
I am not your toy!”
Her brother replied
“I shall smack your hide,
Or would you, perhaps, like a scratch,
So on your face, you’ll wear a patch?”
Doc Crest came bursting through the door,
“Where is the little pest, so poor?”
And thus replied the young girl’s brother,
“There is the stinky little bother!”
“What special treatment do you require?”
“Please tie her to a castle spire!
Or better still, just put her in
A soup we can put in the bin.”
“A soup it is!
First cut then whizz!”
The poor girl fainted,
It looked like red, her face had been painted
When she woke up,
She was tied up
Next to a pot
So boiling hot
She felt like she had just been shot
Right when her brother picked her up,
The cops came in and shouted “Stop!
Don’t put her in!
That’ll be a sin!”
He said “I don’t care,
She’s a rotten old pear”
And just when he was feeling bold,
The policemen knocked him out cold
He was dragged to jail
So young and frail
And was never heard from ever again
“So now you see,” said a coffee barista,
“No good comes out of cooking your sister!”
(Who, in actual fact, was drinking his brother, in the form of an innocent coffee cup)
So, what do you think of it?
The message that I wanted this poem to send was to BE NICE! Whether you’re brother and sister, best friends, colleagues or any other relationship, being kind is key. Typical me, I like to be different, so instead of writing about what to do, I wrote about what not to do! Remember how the brother tries putting his sister in a soup? That represents a bad action, and just by doing it, he releases the darker side of relationships. Of course, there are consequences for these things. Like how the brother was ‘dragged off to jail’ in this piece, the consequences are serious, and trust me, you don’t want to face them. And of course, the very end teaches us not to judge a book by its cover…or the contents of a coffee cup by its label (honestly, you never know what a two-faced person your coffee barista could be). The coffee barista in this poem represents the many two-faced people in this world that give out words of wisdom but do the exact opposite of their own advice! Nobody should be like this. Instead, we should all be our true selves and try to be the best we can and help others be their best every day!
p/s: Oh yes, and not to forget, cannibalism is BAD!!! 😬
The Pawsome Lion 