The Spoonbill Generator

This poem is dedicated to the memory of Marmaduke Apsley       [Apsley ]

How bellicose, how sullen       [Surlaw ]

The haddock had their way:       [Apsley ]

Empurpled with their sudden loss       [Surlaw ]

Of what had been their name       [Apsley ]

How dull, despite their glister       [Surlaw ]

Of what had gone before,       [Apsley ]

Implacable, recursive       [Surlaw ]

Athwart the mighty seas,       [Apsley ]

With quinqueremes akimbo       [Surlaw ]

The haddock were unready       [Apsley ]

Irresolute, unclean       [Surlaw ]

By dint of what they chose to eat       [Apsley ]

And what had been their game       [Surlaw ]

How flat, despite the bluster       [Apsley ]

Of what was still to come       [Surlaw ]

Implacable, divisive       [Apsley ]

Amid the Polar wastes       [Surlaw ]

Of Rosicrucian chatter       [Apsley ]

But spare your condemnation!       [Surlaw ]

Let it gnaw its box       [Apsley ]

All impostures, indirect       [Surlaw ]

Shall bring on you the pox       [Apsley ]

How plain, despite the glister       [Surlaw ]

Of what will never be,       [Apsley ]

Implacable, if costive,       [Surlaw ]

Across the quaking gulfs       [Apsley ]

Of saturnine indiff'rence       [Surlaw ]

From the Heights of Heaven,       [Apsley ]

If not from realms of Diss       [Surlaw ]

We espouse the leaven       [Apsley ]

The cross whose name is Chris       [Aristotle ]

We crave it in the morning       [Apsley ]

We bleat for it at dusk       [Surlaw ]

And seek it in the awning       [Apsley ]

Or underneath the husk       [Surlaw ]

Of Poseidon's cod       [Apsley ]