My favourite pet was a raspberry flan
Which resembled a woman much more than a fellow
And dyed itself green much more often than yellow
And ended its life when the earthquake began.
We rumble and rumble, volcanoes of Asia
For the sun is in Taurus, and tidal the moon,
The doughnut was washed, and the old paper spoon
Lets out a laser wot frettens to daze yer.
Expurgation is an anagram of sin
And Worcester sauce a telegram of woe
But not the right colour for the Alamo,
Where periphrastic doughnuts enter in.
Pyrex is a motor-neurone's spark
And if I hope to fall upon your sword
The which, or so it's said, the muskrat gnawed
Although the wombat found it 'ard to vark
This uncooked Snark
Cairo ain't the daughter of the Nile
But of Napoleon, to be Francophile,
(The frog is but a winter toad
And dies upon the mispwonouncŠd woad,
And burns on the atomic pile
(Of Tate, or Lyle)).
Magus is the daughter of Magee
The magistrate fell straight into the sea
And drowned.
I seem to fly across a thousand themes:
Razorblades, potatoes, asymptotes ...
November handstands, sunken quinqueremes,
Salubrious lobsters and asthmatic ferrets
Who the rival spurgeon bloats;
My themes are better than your scansion merits.
She whose teeth were sharp and nails were long
And painted green with jagged, ragged tips
Whose fingers sang an evil, ribald song
Whose tongue was scarce more barbed than were her lips;
She breathed the air, it fell, congealed, to drips,
And imprisoned her hair net with stainless steel grips:
Medusa struck twice on the gong.
But Val, at whom the gods ha' laughed
At bay (O foxes!), stay your aim
Like Stell across a field that's strafed,
Or else an architect whom none could tame
Till they lock him in a rotting frame
And all that's left is ... lame.
(For Val, you see, is daft).
I deem that I, who now have flown aloft,
Should never have departed from my swamp
To circumcise the stokers in their croft
Who crop the sheep with circumstance, or pomp.
And with their rubber jaws do stoatly champ and chomp
And in their playgrounds on the ramps do romp
(My love, you see, is soft).