The Spoonbill Generator

'Cusp' she spelt without a 'K' [Surlaw]

For Kafka was her bitter bane [Apsley]

& caused her endless grinding pain [Surlaw]

That never never went away [Apsley]

But lingered in her nether zones [Surlaw]

Where man nor beast could spy it out [Apsley]

In sinew, synapse, nor in bones [Surlaw]

(Despite a host of shady loans) [Apsley]

It lingered; such is gout. [Surlaw]

She was an ageing beauty queen [Apsley]

Midwinter was her Waterloo [Surlaw]

When she would haunt the frozen zoo [Apsley]

Enswathed in plasticene [Surlaw]

That had been purchased on a spree [Apsley]

With neither credit-card nor cash [Surlaw]

Nor cup of tea too icily [Apsley]

Remaindered; all quite free. [Surlaw]

Her middle name rhymed with jam [Apsley]

And all her others with 'perhaps' [Surlaw]

(Which made her very fond of baps) [Apsley]

And, when in Amsterdam [Surlaw]

(The self-styled Ipswich of the East) [Apsley]

She'd marinate her clogs [Surlaw]

Inside some spindly logs, [Apsley]

A somewhat charmless feast [Surlaw]

Fit but for the sweetest showers [Apsley]

And fortified agin all drought [Surlaw]

(As Chaucer very fondly thought) [Apsley]

She'd while away the hours [Surlaw]

In knitting match-sticks out of slime: [Apsley]

She'd while away the weeks [Surlaw]

Until the serried hands of Time [Apsley]

Daub their charcoal 'pon her cheeks [Surlaw]

Kafka came at dawn to fetch the rent: [Apsley]

Yet by the evening every sou was spent. [Surlaw]