Ode to the Laughter of my Pancreas
Who can fathom the rat's cunning ways?
Damped by a blue tambourine
Whoever would think 'twould become such a craze?
Something obese and obscene
Something that still has the power to amaze
From azure to aquamarine
Who does not ache at the mouse's poor fate
Wincing at khaki trombones
Whoever could tell if the welder was late?
What was the cause of his groans?
Why did the cuttlefish stand at the gate?
Embedding his tusks in the stones?
Who can recall where the pigs' eyes were popped?
Grimacing up at the stars
What did we care if their eyebrows were cropped?
(Shorter by far than Papa's)
Isn't it time that this nonsense was stopped?
Fetch a spittoon, or a vase ...
Father, I cannot go back down the pit
Lobsters bedevil my path
When we are served with the sinister writ
Rats may be fried in the hearth
Drowning in leather, deficient of wit
They blink at the brim of my bath
Happy Old Year to the prince and princess!
Celebrate bittern and beard!
How did we ever come back to this mess?
(Though not quite as bad as we'd feared)
Who can deny us the right to digress
When did it all get so weird?
When shall we penetrate farthest Penang?
When will fair Margelet dance?
Crumbling the crust of her virgin Meringue
En brise, as they have it in France
Where all the Lays we so merrily sang
When will the Welder advance?
Not till the wombat, bedraggled with woe
Tickles the parson's sore nose
Not till the fragments of olf Krakato-
Are regripped by the eagle-owl's toes
Not till the foeman shall slander the foe
Deriding their luminous glows
| Contributors: | TG, Roland, P, (trad.), R+L. |
| Poem finished: | 27th September 1998. |