Cinderella -- Roald Dahl

Guest poem sent in by Ajit Narayanan

(Poem #1416) Cinderella I guess you think you know this story. You don't. The real one's much more gory. The phoney one, the one you know, Was cooked up years and years ago, And made to sound all soft and sappy just to keep the children happy. Mind you, they got the first bit right, The bit where, in the dead of night, The Ugly Sisters, jewels and all, Departed for the Palace Ball, While darling little Cinderella Was locked up in a slimy cellar, Where rats who wanted things to eat, Began to nibble at her feet. She bellowed 'Help!' and 'Let me out! The Magic Fairy heard her shout. Appearing in a blaze of light, She said: 'My dear, are you all right?' 'All right?' cried Cindy .'Can't you see 'I feel as rotten as can be!' She beat her fist against the wall, And shouted, 'Get me to the Ball! 'There is a Disco at the Palace! 'The rest have gone and 1 am jalous! 'I want a dress! I want a coach! 'And earrings and a diamond brooch! 'And silver slippers, two of those! 'And lovely nylon panty hose! 'Done up like that I'll guarantee 'The handsome Prince will fall for me!' The Fairy said, 'Hang on a tick.' She gave her wand a mighty flick And quickly, in no time at all, Cindy was at the Palace Ball! It made the Ugly Sisters wince To see her dancing with the Prince. She held him very tight and pressed herself against his manly chest. The Prince himself was turned to pulp, All he could do was gasp and gulp. Then midnight struck. She shouted,'Heck! Ive got to run to save my neck!' The Prince cried, 'No! Alas! Alack!' He grabbed her dress to hold her back. As Cindy shouted, 'Let me go!' The dress was ripped from head to toe. She ran out in her underwear, And lost one slipper on the stair. The Prince was on it like a dart, He pressed it to his pounding heart, 'The girl this slipper fits,' he cried, 'Tomorrow morn shall be my bride! I'll visit every house in town 'Until I've tracked the maiden down!' Then rather carelessly, I fear, He placed it on a crate of beer. At once, one of the Ugly Sisters, (The one whose face was blotched with blisters) Sneaked up and grabbed the dainty shoe, And quickly flushed it down the loo. Then in its place she calmly put The slipper from her own left foot. Ah ha, you see, the plot grows thicker, And Cindy's luck starts looking sicker. Next day, the Prince went charging down To knock on all the doors in town. In every house, the tension grew. Who was the owner of the shoe? The shoe was long and very wide. (A normal foot got lost inside.) Also it smelled a wee bit icky. (The owner's feet were hot and sticky.) Thousands of eager people came To try it on, but all in vain. Now came the Ugly Sisters' go. One tried it on. The Prince screamed, 'No!' But she screamed, 'Yes! It fits! Whoopee! 'So now you've got to marry me!' The Prince went white from ear to ear. He muttered, 'Let me out of here.' 'Oh no you don't! You made a vow! 'There's no way you can back out now!' 'Off with her head!'The Prince roared back. They chopped it off with one big whack. This pleased the Prince. He smiled and said, 'She's prettier without her head.' Then up came Sister Number Two, Who yelled, 'Now I will try the shoe!' 'Try this instead!' the Prince yelled back. He swung his trusty sword and smack Her head went crashing to the ground. It bounced a bit and rolled around. In the kitchen, peeling spuds, Cinderella heard the thuds Of bouncing heads upon the floor, And poked her own head round the door. 'What's all the racket? 'Cindy cried. 'Mind your own bizz,' the Prince replied. Poor Cindy's heart was torn to shreds. My Prince! she thought. He chops off heads! How could I marry anyone Who does that sort of thing for fun? The Prince cried, 'Who's this dirty slut? 'Off with her nut! Off with her nut!' Just then, all in a blaze of light, The Magic Fairy hove in sight, Her Magic Wand went swoosh and swish! 'Cindy! 'she cried, 'come make a wish! 'Wish anything and have no doubt 'That I will make it come about!' Cindy answered, 'Oh kind Fairy, 'This time I shall be more wary. 'No more Princes, no more money. 'I have had my taste of honey. I'm wishing for a decent man. 'They're hard to find. D'you think you can?' Within a minute, Cinderella Was married to a lovely feller, A simple jam maker by trade, Who sold good home-made marmalade. Their house was filled with smiles and laughter And they were happy ever after. -- Roald Dahl

There is a certain charm to retellings of old stories that defies analysis.
One gets a certain naughty thrill from reading the works of Guy Carryl, say,
or Roald Dahl's 'Revolting Rhymes' from which the above gem is taken. I
suppose these poems are all the more funny because they're stories which are
familiar, _sacred_ even, and a sudden change in tenor takes one's breath
away!

Roald Dahl is, of course, a master at doing this. Many of his stories for
adults have that sudden and almost sacreligious twist, and his stories for
children (which I will always rate as the better of his works) tick because
of the clever turns that he gives to those old platitudes, those old
fairytales and those nursery rhymes, which children of a certain age grow to
despise with the contempt that comes with familiarity, and which he sends up
with unfailing precision and skill.

More of Dahl's 'Revolting Rhymes' at:
[broken link] http://www.the-artery.co.uk/words/0024.php

More of Dahl at:
http://oldpoetry.com/authors/Roald%20Dahl

Guy Carryl at:
Poem #273 - How a Cat Was Annoyed and a Poet Was Booted
Poem #94 -  The Embarrassing Episode of Little Miss Muffet
Poem #137 - The Sycophantic Fox and the Gullible Raven
and Gutenburg ('Fables for the Frivolous',
http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/cgi-bin/sdb/t9.cgi?
entry=6438&full=yes&ftpsite=http://www.ibiblio.org/gutenberg/ ).

- Ajit Q.

Some other fairy-tale retellings on Minstrels:

Poem #242: The Pied Piper of Hamelin
Poem #961: The Wolf's Postcript to 'Little Red Riding Hood'
Poem #978: Cinderella

Television -- Roald Dahl

(Poem #818) Television The most important thing we've learned, So far as children are concerned, Is never, NEVER, NEVER let Them near your television set -- Or better still, just don't install The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we've been, We've watched them gaping at the screen. They loll and slop and lounge about, And stare until their eyes pop out. (Last week in someone's place we saw A dozen eyeballs on the floor.) They sit and stare and stare and sit Until they're hypnotised by it, Until they're absolutely drunk With all that shocking ghastly junk. Oh yes, we know it keeps them still, They don't climb out the window sill, They never fight or kick or punch, They leave you free to cook the lunch And wash the dishes in the sink -- But did you ever stop to think, To wonder just exactly what This does to your beloved tot? IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD! IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD! IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND! IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND! HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE! HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE! HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES! 'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say, 'But if we take the set away, What shall we do to entertain Our darling children? Please explain!' We'll answer this by asking you, 'What used the darling ones to do? 'How used they keep themselves contented Before this monster was invented?' Have you forgotten? Don't you know? We'll say it very loud and slow: THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ, AND READ and READ, and then proceed To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks! One half their lives was reading books! The nursery shelves held books galore! Books cluttered up the nursery floor! And in the bedroom, by the bed, More books were waiting to be read! Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales And treasure isles, and distant shores Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars, And pirates wearing purple pants, And sailing ships and elephants, And cannibals crouching 'round the pot, Stirring away at something hot. (It smells so good, what can it be? Good gracious, it's Penelope.) The younger ones had Beatrix Potter With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter, And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland, And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and- Just How The Camel Got His Hump, And How the Monkey Lost His Rump, And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul, There's Mr. Rate and Mr. Mole- Oh, books, what books they used to know, Those children living long ago! So please, oh please, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install A lovely bookshelf on the wall. Then fill the shelves with lots of books, Ignoring all the dirty looks, The screams and yells, the bites and kicks, And children hitting you with sticks- Fear not, because we promise you That, in about a week or two Of having nothing else to do, They'll now begin to feel the need Of having something to read. And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy! You watch the slowly growing joy That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen They'll wonder what they'd ever seen In that ridiculous machine, That nauseating, foul, unclean, Repulsive television screen! And later, each and every kid Will love you more for what you did. -- Roald Dahl

 From "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory", 1964.
 Sung by the Oompa-Loompas, upon the terrible fate that befalls Mike Teavee.
 The song is untitled in the original.

Roald Dahl's gorgeously gruesome books have been thrilling me from a very
young age, so it was with a sense of meeting old friends that I chanced upon
a Dahl exhibition last night, at a bookstore here in Tokyo. I came home
laden with a haul of goodies, which I promptly proceeded to read and reread,
and it was in that process that I rediscovered today's poem. Immortal verse
it might not be, but as a rant against television and a rave about the magic
of books, it says all I've ever wanted to say. What more could one ask for?

thomas.

[Biography]

 born Sept. 13, 1916, Llandaff, Wales
 died Nov. 23, 1990, Oxford, Eng.

British writer, a popular author of ingenious, irreverent children's books
and of adult horror stories.

Following his graduation from Repton, a renowned British public school, in
1932, Dahl avoided a university education and joined an expedition to
Newfoundland. He worked from 1937 to 1939 in Dar es Salaam, Tanganyika (now
in Tanzania), but he enlisted in the Royal Air Force (RAF) when World War II
broke out. Flying as a fighter pilot, he was seriously injured in a crash
landing in Libya. He served with his squadron in Greece and then in Syria
before doing a stint (1942-43) as assistant air attaché in Washington, D.C.
There the novelist C.S. Forester encouraged him to write about his most
exciting RAF adventures, which were published by the Saturday Evening Post.

Dahl's first book, The Gremlins (1943), was written for Walt Disney and
later became a popular movie. He achieved best-seller status with Someone
like You (1953; rev. ed. 1961), a collection of stories for adults, which
was followed by Kiss, Kiss (1959). His children's book James and the Giant
Peach (1961; film 1996), written for his own children, was a popular
success, as was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964), which was made
into the film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971). His other works
for young readers include Fantastic Mr. Fox (1970), The Enormous Crocodile
(1978), and Matilda (1988; film 1996). Dahl also wrote several scripts for
movies, among them You Only Live Twice (1967) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
(1968).

        -- EB

There's more at [broken link] http://www.roalddahl.org/index2.htm

[Minstrels Links]

Poem #91, Cottleston Pie  -- A. A. Milne
Poem #463, Disobedience  -- A. A. Milne
Poem #562, The King's Breakfast -- A. A. Milne
Poem #576, Tra-la-la, tra-la-la -- A. A. Milne
Poem #799, Mr Toad -- Kenneth Grahame
Poem #564, Warning to Children -- Robert Graves
Poem #2, The Listeners  -- Walter de la Mare
Poem #725, Silver -- Walter de la Mare
Poem #630, To Walter de la Mare -- T. S. Eliot
Poem #809, Jim -- Hilaire Belloc
Poem #811, The Insect God -- Edward Gorey