The Spoonbill Generator

This is the way the lady rides [Trad.]

As the aqueducts tumble and the Empire subsides [P]

This is the way the world will end [Trad.]

With kin killing kin and with friend fearing friend [TG]

Here we go round the mulberry bush [Trad]

As the galaxy waits for the ultimate push [TG]

We'll all have jam and honey for tea [Gillian Davis]

As our garden sinks into the wintery sea [P]

Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross [TG]

Slap 'em around and show 'em who's boss! [Stacy]

Hurl all the heathens to ultimate doom [P]

As entropy draws us to Stygian gloom [TG]

A tisket a tasket exclaimed the prim lass, [Stacy]

As cities sink into the greedy morass [TG]

Leaderless panarchies develope within, [Stacy]

Few vicious circles know how to begin [Roland]

Christopher kneels at the foot of the bed [TG]

A navy-blue flute on the top of his head [Trad.]

All praying is vain as the pillage ensues [TG]

And corpses pile up in the pulpits and pews [Roland]

Jenny O'Leary pulls open the blind [Kent]

Blearily gapes at the ruins beyond [Roland]

This is the way that creation will pass [TG]

Twice as forlorn as an acre of grass [Loaf]

Ask dear Diana if death really hurts, [Stacy]

(Sad to see Artemis felled by her hounds) [Roland]

If death is like life, but without the hairshirts [P]

Small wonder no rumours are doing the rounds [Roland]

Abracadabra! The poem will end [Bop]

Authors will falter, and rhymes fail to blend [Roland]

Appalling scansion that no one can mend [P]

Just how much lower can standards descend? [Roland]

We must finish now, or we'll go round the bend. [TG]