Lefty Poems and Lyrics

by Peter Wilson

It's a problem, is being Left-handed,
as five million of us all know.
If we all switched political leanings,
in elections, results would soon show.

We dislike being labelled "Cack-handed",
it's a term that we all deprecate,
a mis-nomer with which we are landed,
and a matter we'd like to put straight.

The Romans called right-handers Dexterous,
and Sinister those that were Left,
and those not-too-sure Ambi-dextrous,
as they're twice as skilful and deft.

So I'll tell you of some of our problems,
and ask you to please understand,
just how difficult life can be sometimes,
when everything's on the "wrong" hand!

Take a simple thing like a tape-measure,
if with needles and pins you are deft.
Must we stand on our heads just to read it,
when the numbers all read Right to Left?

When ever I put on the kettle,
(It's hard to fill up through the spout),
my wife always finds there's a handle,
where hot water ought to come out!

Sould carpentry be your profession
this end of the wedge is quite thin,
so remember to turn the thing clockwise,
or the drill will go out, 'stead of in.

If ever we try to use scissors,
for us lot it causes a frown,
'cos you never can see where you're cutting
when the paper curls up, 'stead of down!

I'd write you a cheque if 't would please ye,
but as Shakespeare said, "Ay, there's the rub",
for to note the amount isn't easy,
when you can't get the pen in the stub!

In the "smallest room" there's one more caper
now can't you imagine our plight,
when you reach to the left for the paper,
and the toilet roll's fixed on the right.

I'd like a left-handed piano,
with all of the keyboard reversed,
then I'd play the "Four Seasons" all backwards
just to make sure that "Summer" came first.

Now another thing: door-knobs and switches,
they're something that gives us the twinges.
In the dark, when you make for the bathroom,
and you promptly walk into the hinges!

If musical fame's your ambition
to learn the guitar is the worst.
You have to play all the chords backwards,
when all of the strings are reversed.

I'd open a can of Heinz beanz,
- the ones with the sausages in,
but till somebody markets the means,
they'll just have to stay in the tin.

Elextric flex, would you believe,
is something else I've listed,
for when we try to twist the ends,
it simply comes un-twisted.

There is but one small consolation,
to prove fairness is not all bereft,
when Westminster decreed, as a Nation,
that we should all drive .... on the Left!