Hell’s bells and buckets of bloody blood!
My mother used to say
and after Australia
she said it every day
It used to be
just Hell’s bells and buckets of blood
but bloody was a word oft heard
in the land of Oz you see
Hell’s bells—an apt description
for news now from everywhere
it would have given her conniptions
were she still here
Hell, I’d even use the cuss she bequeathed me
except I don’t accept religious geography
and know that Hell is here on Earth
and not some seven circled place beneath
Hell’s bells – the cuss abbreviated
hardly reflects the place we’ve come to
climate change, genocidal wars
from decency and democracy we’ve deviated
Hell’s bells and buckets of blood
for greater impact
our world is in the toilet
and that’s a fact
So still I hear my mother’s voice
raised in exasperation
uttering her curse of choice
Hell’s bells and buckets of bloody blood!
© Andrew Wilson, 2024
Over at dVerse Poets Pub, dorahak in Poetics inspires us with a very fulsome prompt, to write using repetition as a poetic tool…