Twentych

These poems have started a trend
And they've driven me quite round the bend —
Oh my God! What a blow!
It's sixteen in a row,
So I think at this point I shall end.

There once was a piece of old toast
Which thought it had spotted a ghost
It looked south and north
It ran back and forth
But couldn't decide which it liked most.
    (dictated to Liz)

There was an old man known as Bill
Who croaked without leaving a will
It was puzzling, 'cos
No one knew who he was
So they pulped him through a paper-mill.

There once was a basket of eggs
Which had several flexible legs
Though it walked with them bent
This was clearly not meant
For its eyesight, and so it wore specs.

There once was a hairy old Sasquatch
Who fell into a bucket of whitewash
It got covered in paint
And yelled, "Happy I ain't,
'Cos this poem's a load of old hogwash!"

(20 in a row...)

Dipstick

There once was an MP called Gyles
Who wore jumpers and hideous smiles
He went mad, got elected...
And shortly rejected,
But his jumpers could be heard for miles.

I used to like lying in bed
But I've found something nicer instead
A rotten old mission
Called decomposition —
But it's possible only if dead.

There once was a Radio Times
Which was used to mop up household grimes
It was usually bearable
(But utterly terrible
Throughout the Olympic Gimes).

I once bought myself a pet cat
But I smashed it to bits with a bat
Then I purchased a second
But dinnertime beckoned
So I microwaved it — and that's that.

Trip sick

There once was a window of life
Through which one saw trouble and strife
All the prisons and laws
All the famines and wars
So I smashed it to bits with a knife.

I once had a poodle called Tim
Who was lovable, cuddly and prim
But he tripped on a saw
And now Tim is no more
But his head's sloshing round in my bin.

There once was a poet called Justin
Who wrote limericks foul and disgusting
He'd rewritten "Macbeth"
Using thrice as much death
Well, all right, it needed a dusting.

There once was a ghastly suggestion
That Hamlet was made out of hessian
(But more likely of sheep
Or computers) — to beep
Or not to beep — that is the question.

Trip tick

I once had a match. It was dud,
So I threw it away with a thud.
But the whole house caught fire,
I was blown into a mire,
And thus ended up covered in mud.

There once was a blob in a bucket
And nobody wanted to suck it.
(Unless they were drunk)
For it smelt like a skunk
And unpleasantly shouted out etc.

This book is now too full of verse
Despite its great proseness at first
If you're caught unawares
By a poem — who cares?
Just ignore it (or taste it and burst).

It's raining outside and it's cold
And I'm feeling quite terribly old
I've broken my back
And my knees just went crack
And my nostrils are clogged up with mould.

Triptych

1. There never was cheese on the moon
And the end of the yawn came too soon
For the green ones are worst
When you're crying of thirst
And the dish blinked and caught a baboon
(Baboon)
And the dish blinked and caught a baboon.

2. I'm singing a song made of wood (tra-la)
Much better than I thought I could (tra-la)
It's so comfortably warm
On the front garden lawn
And here comes Little Red Riding-Hood
(Ding-Hood)
And here comes Little Red Riding-Hood.

3. Your spinster is full of old dust
And my foot, no! my brain, has gone bust
There's just far too much glue
In this Moppocrump stew
And it leaves me completely nonplussed
(Nonplussed)
And it leaves me completely nonplussed.

    (ROUND) THE (B)END.

Star Trext

Self consuming Pac-man, or what?

What, please!

Incorrect. Forfeit three participles, two green eithers and sheet lightening.

So that, O best beloved, is how parachutes were invented.

Negative Space. The never-reachable final front-ear. These are the voyages of the Starman Derrida. His five-book mission to seek out strange new unrealities, to corner unthinkable paradoxes, boldly to gibber where no text has progressed before...

    (Star Trext, The Post-Modern Generation).

Very ^meta trekky. Indeed. Inthought.

        Sort of. Anyway. Full stop?

Ten-month-old sick

There once was some ten-month old sick
Which nobody wanted to lick
(Unless they were drunk)
For it smelt like a skunk
And was nearly a hundred yards thick.

The Deity, to His distress
Fell down an infinite regress
Quite unreconstructed
In "fact" deconstructed
The "Word become flesh" more or less...

There once was a Godhead Incarnate
Whose hair was the colour of garnet
Omnipotent, timeless
Infinite and rhymeless
He kept all eternity in a hairnet.

My sofa is made ^out of rhubarb

There once was a hospital nurse
Who had spent all her life in a hearse
And yet no one knew why...
"Indigestion!" I cry,
For she'd eaten the whole Universe!