The Spoonbill Generator

A table of kinship for all the world's cats

An index to all of my unwritten works

A symphony hummed by a swarm of small gnats

An album of photos of atheist kirks

That's what I want and that's what I'll get

Who needs religion? Who needs a pet?

But while I was reading, a dripping began

Which flooded my wardrobe and washed me away

Beyond Bognor Regis, as far as Japan

- And what happened then I would rather not say.

What was the marbling that blemished those boards?

Who will not blench when the listener applauds?

But though I was feeling just slightly unwell

While fourteen mosquitoes made free with my lobes

The end of this story is one I can't tell,

For moths have devoured my authorial robes

But wait what's the whistle?! What's that beep, what's that bell?

How shall I chart my descent into Hell?

And as I was riding down into the gully

A narrow defile where the treasure was lost

Caught my eye, why was it in all this sully?

What was the price, what was the cost?

The deuce with the cost, sir, I'll have my desire

Or shatter in fragments your helmet of jade

I'll build you the lovliest funerial pyre,

In which your trombone and your fife can be laid

A hellish proverb, a lovely descent!

No turgid tribunal will mock your demise

The piper will pipe, that lovely lament

Till streams of hot lava cascade from our eyes

So is it what isn't that which I lament?

Believing what might be, forgetting what was?

Whipsering, screaming a hushed fickle buzz,

As body and mind were encased in cement.

The end of this missive marks the end of all time,

And all the world's cats utter, yowling, 'Amen!'

They genuflect primly and recite meowly rhymes,

Which makes the whole world start all over again.

Can earth and air spiral on a feline's simple caterwaul?

Lucretia's new meter astounds us all,

Let's stop all this rambling and go to the ball!

Contributors:	Roland, P, Bop, Stacy, TG, KD, Ra-el Peters, RM, Lucretia.
Poem finished:	7th June 1997.