O dear stomach! O dear stomach!
How much should I give you? How much?
Doughnuts, cakes and sugar lumps,
bread and butter, sweet round plums,
grapes and mangoes – sweet and sour,
cookies and chocolates from the jar,
jam and cheese and wafers too,
little berries – black and blue.
How is it that I eat so much,
yet can never fill you up?
You rumble and rumble and ask for more.
Candies and toffees then I eat by the score,
walnuts, dates and cashewnuts,
oranges, almonds and coconuts,
ice cream, juice and sweet buns,
and above all, huge pie chunks.
And now tell me why do you ache
after from me so much you take?
You make me groan, moan and sigh
and then I feel I’m going to die.
I have to eat food that is boiled;
It’s your fault I’m given castor oil.
O dear stomach! O dear stomach!
How much should I give you? How much?

With the bright sun scorching
the afternoon skies at three,
I turned the page to
The Apostrophe.

Little did I know about
Grammar’s sinister plot
for the apostrophe to
put me in a tight spot.

Apparently, the apostrophe
works just like quick concrete
holding words together when
one or more letters are missing.

It appears in can’t and in don’t,
but not in pant and in font.
Wouldn’t, couldn’t and shouldn’t
would all be incorrect without it.

All’s well so far, but it doesn’t end.
For the apostrophe, with a friend – the s
is also used to show possession –
something belonging to someone else.

Here it gets murkier as the s
follows it if the possesor’s singular,
and if it’s a plural that ends in an s,
the apostrophe alone follows that s.

So if Larry had a cat that had a tail,
it’s correct to write Larry’s cat’s tail.
If he had cats, there’d be many tails,
and it’s written as Larry’s cats’ tails.

Give up already? No? there’s more.
What about children, men, women,
mice and geese – no s ends these.
Here both the apostrophe and s come in.

So it’s children’s toys, men’s shoes,
And women’s department all true.
Adding to all that confusion
is that most confounding rule.

Now it’s should be used as “it is”.
And here’s where the catch is –
It’s also used with no apostrophe
As the bird’s in its nest on the tree.

To apostrophe or not to apostrophe
that was the question you see.
Was it Karen’s and Jane’s bikes?
Or Peter and Ron’s fight?

I closed the book with bleary eyes
Not certain if I had got it right
praying to all the powers that be
to help me with the apostrophe…