One Hundred and Thirty Children
by
- I've lived all my life on an island so rare,
- The girl awoke; she looked askance
- A green-feathered duck flew round the moon,
- On a fine sunny day we went to the zoo
- I stand alone, through having loaned a stand.
I've lived all my life on an island so rare,
My only companion a fat polar bear.
I've existed on fish from a hole in the ice;
The whole of the fish was a nice camembert,
But there certainly wasn't enough for to share.
I've died all my deaths in a scene from King Lear,
Immersed in a jar of best-quality beer:
My brain became pickled, I just could not think.
I sank to my knees with a sorrowful tear
And wished that the colourful duck could be here.
I've visited Heaven, I've called in at Hell.
My leg fell off.
Oh well!
Now I've learned in sin not to be insincere,
And aimed to achieve a ridiculous leer.
I missed the last 'bus and I had to walk home,
But my life flashed before me and then became clear
That a plum is a fruit, and a fawn is a deer.
My tail is too long, and my story's too tall:
I can't seem to fit in this rhyme-scheme at all.
I struggled and rose -- the flower smelt fine
But the daisy was dashed, for the bees were too small,
And the Bessemer Converter came first overall.
I've been to the belfry, I've drunk all the fat:
I jumped from the bell-tower.
Splat!
The girl awoke; she looked askance
While the handsome prince asked her to dance.
"Avert your eyes,"
Were her shrill cries,
"I must resist your bold advance!"
He lunged at her madly: she welcomed him gladly
She fell into his arms, and they kissed. But, sadly,
They missed, alack,
And tumbled back
On to the bed, where they danced badly.
His terrible aim had a cause in myopia.
He said to her boldly, "I really do hope ya
Can help me make
Tomorrow a cake
Or, darling, I'll really soft-soap ya."
Said she, with a grin, "If you do that I'll yell;
The bad fairy appears at the touch of a bell.
I know it's a bind
But, if you do, you'll go blind."
He replied; it was truly a monsterous sell.
Said the fairy, "I'll hit you and join in the fun!"
And the elves and the pixies came out one by one.
The goblins appeared,
And the fairy was seared
By the burning gold rays of the luminous sun.
The sun it had set in gelatinous mould;
It quivered, then sank, as the day had grown old.
The golden orb waved
And the sandbar was saved
By casting a statue in smooth polished gold.
[DUCK SOUP]
((DUCK SOUP))
A green-feathered duck flew round the moon,
Its phaser-banks firmly on "stun".
It whistled a loud unmelodious tune,
And dreamt of a red leather bun.
The fires died down to a ghostly glow
And crackled away in the hearth;
I pondered upon the existence of To
As I warmed my nose in the bath.
Green figs in blue wine
Are excessively fine
But they will not suffice
Unless simmered in brine.
Its primaries soiled as the poor bird was boiled
(Oh many an entrail I'ld tell!)
As the Irishmen, taunted, abused and reviled
And the fairies all danced in the dell.
The maidens went down to the glade by the stream:
Their faces were covered, their pale bodies green
With the after-effects of tea with the Queen
Who had served boiled carp with the truncated bream.
Pink Ferrets in sieves
One frequently gives
To unfortunate mortals
And salubrious spivs.
The shoe-string tie gave way to the wide,
A pencilled moustache, and hair slickly styled;
The man with forked tongue denied that he lied,
But was nonetheless firmly and justly reviled.
On a fine sunny day we went to the zoo
To see aardvarks and elks, alsatians and mice
And kangaroos sucking pink coconut ice.
All life flashed before me, like that, in a trice,
And a tumbril of hairpins, a whirl of white lice
Which flashed by in an instant all covered in glue.
The Sheik of Abdulla fell down on his knees
And cried to his wives, who were singing a round,
"Another like that and you'll all be disowned!"
The chief wife said, wifely, "Why don't you say please,
And we'll coat you in lemon and fry you with cheese,
And jump up-and-down 'til you fall to the ground."
The finger which pointed the way to my doom
Showed the Welder the way to the whispering wood
Where nudibranchs always have eyes for their pud
Or else moolg around in a dark cloud of gloom
For a room with a fish, or a fish with a womb,
Or a catacalysmic announcement in bloom.
The walking-stick hung by a thread from the light
As if held there by God, or by Araldite;
And the butterfly fluttered by, tied in a knot,
And the bee has just been, though the wasp it was hot
With the waspish-type anger one knows it has got.
I stand alone, through having loaned a stand.
I grasped the red-hot poker most firmly in my hand.
My friends have all left me, they've gone to Siam.
O desp'rate am I, how unhappy I am!
I lost my last friend, I could not stand a loan,
From the indigent friend of the half-baritone.
Unwanted, unsuccoured, I fell in despair,
The bloated blue bats caught up in my hair.
I crawled to my feet, which were three yards away
With three feet to the yard then I sat in the hay
And waved a white sock to a passing top-hat
Which turned upside-down and soon disgorged a cat.
I felt for the maze, while amazed at the feel
Of unbasted hy‘na and monsterous teal;
Surrounded by hedges of mushroom and maize
I was dazed every night, and benighted by days.
I tripped over the sky as I walked upon air.
I discovered a fly in the roots of my hair.
The root of the matter was -- where could I fly?
To Wigan perhaps? Well, let's have a try.
The glutinous mass which I took for my nose
Was really a Pobble, a-seeking his toes.
The sky fell down, with a crack, on my head:
'Twas the end off my dream as I fell out of bed.
©1973, 1999 The Rat Fathom Poets
Edited by Peter Christian
May 31 2023.