Stroll Across The Pier
When Sullivan was just a lad, his father went to see
If parboiled Savoy Cabbages could substitute for tea
Or if they could reconstitute a hot refrashing brew
Decanted from an oily carton, North of Waterloo
His father, though, did not return and here's the reason why:
His niece, the vixen Astrid, was loitering hard by
She struck him down and stole his clothes for purposes obscene
And sold his punctured body to the minions of the Queen
Yet he but as a colander did not fulfil his role
For Astrid, when she stole his heart, had left behind his soul
His privates and his pancreas; and thus, by half-past ten
He took a warbled grithum to Bulgaria again
This fictive beast resembles the cameleopard
But tastes much better when it's grilled and peppered
For else it is all rubbery and wriggles like an eel
And isn't at all crunchy and its feathers all congeal
In London town, poor Sullivan did haunt the streets in search
Of pert young women of the night whom he could take to church
And if to church they would not go, he had a subtle plan:
He'd fill them full of cold sardines and throw them in the van
For Sullivan was quite a wit, and liked a drink or two,
And other things he did were things that most priests do not do
For instance, of an eventide, he'd wander through the park
And cruelly kick dogs in the balls to see how loud they'd bark
But pestilence and fratricide to him were not co-heirs
(Rumour even had it he was a friend of Tony Blair's)
And, stumbling through Pimlico, he spied a rabid cur
Which bit him on the bottom as he tried to stroke its fur
He hurtled to the omnibus and bought a ha'penny fare
The passengers recoiled when they saw his lurid hair
"Who is this priest in such a state and foaming at the mouth?
And who are we, drear citizens, but vagrants from the South?"
So said the ancient mariner, whom everyone ignored,
For tedium and misery were themes he most explored;
Like how the seagull that he'd shot had caused him only grief
And, when in East Nuneaton, he'd been taken for a thief.
When Father Sullivan attacked, the passengers all cheered
For they applauded patricide, however strange and weird;
And slimy things did crawl with legs upon a slimy sea
In time to send the driver's mate a chest of China tea
"But what of Astrid?", you may ask (that's if you give a toss)
She kept her head but even so her tale is counted lost
For in the gutter it resides, with Blake and Grimm and Proust
All used for croquet by the Queen, who whacks them with old boots
Yet Sullivan, our host of yore, descended at Gad's Hill
Where he tried his best pick-up lines on a schoolgirl called Jill
Yet she was not the least impressed and kneed him in the groin
Quite undeterred, our fiend the priest just girded up his loins -
Contributors: | Apsley, Roland, P, loaf, TG, Robbell Mott, fester, Grayman, Beefy, Fatty, Glyn. |
Poem finished: | 9th December 2000. |