Today’s important question comes from Erin. It made me think about how many terrible things we are happy for our kids to hear but sexual swear words still send us into a panic. Parental Guidance on this one, but it could have been worse, I suppose.
It isn’t fear, it isn’t fright
Nor is it foe nor fist nor fight
Not fury, furious or fray
Or filthy, fulsome, flaw or flay
The F-word which we must not mutter
The one that’s far too bad to utter’s
Not forbidden or forbode,
(Can’t even write it down in code!)
Not fascist, faction, frack, frustrated
Fiendish, fiery, foetid, fated.
It, I swear, is not fallacious,
Fusty, furtive or fugacious,
Felon, foul or frown or fool
It isn’t false, it’s not ferrule.
I cannot tell you: please don’t pester!
It’s not fall or fail or fester.
No, this word that’s rated X…
It means, well, people having sex
Because they find the thought appealing
Or just because they like the feeling
The F-word (no, it isn’t fart)
Is sometimes how a baby starts.
Can’t write it down, though: if I did
This would not be a rhyme for kids!
And so, I fear, you’re out of luck
I can’t tell you a word like that.
Tom Juniper Poetry 