The Spoonbill Generator

When Sullivan was just a lad, his father went to see [Apsley]

If parboiled Savoy Cabbages could substitute for tea [Roland]

Or if they could reconstitute a hot refrashing brew [P]

Decanted from an oily carton, North of Waterloo [Roland]

His father, though, did not return and here's the reason why: [P]

His niece, the vixen Astrid, was loitering hard by [Roland]

She struck him down and stole his clothes for purposes obscene [P]

And sold his punctured body to the minions of the Queen [loaf]

Yet he but as a colander did not fulfil his role [Apsley]

For Astrid, when she stole his heart, had left behind his soul [TG]

His privates and his pancreas; and thus, by half-past ten [Roland]

He took a warbled grithum to Bulgaria again [Robbell Mott]

This fictive beast resembles the cameleopard [Apsley]

But tastes much better when it's grilled and peppered [fester]

For else it is all rubbery and wriggles like an eel [Apsley]

And isn't at all crunchy and its feathers all congeal [fester]

In London town, poor Sullivan did haunt the streets in search [Apsley]

Of pert young women of the night whom he could take to church [fester]

And if to church they would not go, he had a subtle plan: [Grayman]

He'd fill them full of cold sardines and throw them in the van [Beefy]

For Sullivan was quite a wit, and liked a drink or two, [Apsley]

And other things he did were things that most priests do not do [Fatty]

For instance, of an eventide, he'd wander through the park [TG]

And cruelly kick dogs in the balls to see how loud they'd bark [Fatty]

But pestilence and fratricide to him were not co-heirs [Apsley]

(Rumour even had it he was a friend of Tony Blair's) [fester]

And, stumbling through Pimlico, he spied a rabid cur [Apsley]

Which bit him on the bottom as he tried to stroke its fur [fester]

He hurtled to the omnibus and bought a ha'penny fare [Apsley]

The passengers recoiled when they saw his lurid hair [Beefy]

"Who is this priest in such a state and foaming at the mouth? [fester]

And who are we, drear citizens, but vagrants from the South?" [Apsley]

So said the ancient mariner, whom everyone ignored, [fester]

For tedium and misery were themes he most explored; [Apsley]

Like how the seagull that he'd shot had caused him only grief [fester]

And, when in East Nuneaton, he'd been taken for a thief. [Apsley]

When Father Sullivan attacked, the passengers all cheered [fester]

For they applauded patricide, however strange and weird; [Apsley]

And slimy things did crawl with legs upon a slimy sea [loaf]

In time to send the driver's mate a chest of China tea [Apsley]

"But what of Astrid?", you may ask (that's if you give a toss) [Beefy]

She kept her head but even so her tale is counted lost [loaf]

For in the gutter it resides, with Blake and Grimm and Proust [Apsley]

All used for croquet by the Queen, who whacks them with old boots [fester]

Yet Sullivan, our host of yore, descended at Gad's Hill [Apsley]

Where he tried his best pick-up lines on a schoolgirl called Jill [Glyn]

Yet she was not the least impressed and kneed him in the groin [Apsley]

Quite undeterred, our fiend the priest just girded up his loins - [Glyn]