ODE TO THE SOAPS 

By the Urban Poet 

A walk on the cobbles, a trip down the Arches

Diverted via Emmerdale before we got started

A pint in the Rovers, then in the Queen Vic

Got drunk in the Woolpack through drinking too quick. As characters go you couldn’t beat Seth or Amos, or Shadrach, but now they’re all dead. The Mitchell’s, Den Watts and Roly the dog. Just look for Kat if you fancied a snog

   

The number of weddings, funerals and births

They’ve upped the stakes and made it worse

Now mugging’s and murders are the order

of the day, because it has to be tragic

come what may

  

If you’ve been affected” they now have to say

In case they’ve scared you in a horrible way

With storylines that would make your hair curl

Not like westerns when they always got the girl

    Now you don’t know who is what,

as plots go, It happens a lot

Will she, won’t she, he or him,

a tired old slapper with a double chin

    

The fact remains that anything goes,

as Amos would say “it’s changed tha knows”

The height of tension was when Mr Wilkes

got robbed and beaten for a bottle of milk

    

But you just can’t beat a good old soap

You get addicted to them, it is no joke

It’s money for old rope, what the actors get

Just for appearing inside your TV set!

Rick.....ay!!

From ‘100 More Reasons for Rhyme

By ‘Rick Varden, 2023