Author: Toastingfork

Not afraid to rhyme.

Swarm Over Hamelin

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rats
from The Pied Piper of Hamelin by Dominika Lipniewska

Swarm Over Hamelin

Thank you, sir, thank you sir, thank you a thousandfold !
How we were plagued upon, how we were festered !
Rodentine pestilence, vicious and far-too-bold,
Raided, invaded – our stores all sequestered.
For we had already lost every vat we had,
Every scrap we had, every foison.
And we had already tried every cat we had,
Every trap we had, every poison.
Not just the teeth or the claws was our worrying,
Not just the tapeworms or ticks from the ditches –
No, not just the nibbling and soiling and scurrying –
But oh !, it’s the fleas !  It’s the fleas and the itches !
Nobody worked, and nobody traded,
The strongest ones fled, and illness cascaded.
We would have offered you anything, made you the Pope !
Ev’ryone feared at the spectre amongst us,
And ev’ryone feared for the health of the youngsters –
Look to our children – their future became our last hope.

Thank you, sir, thank you sir, you have deliverèd !
Thank you for ridding our cellars of nestings !
Leading your river of rats to the riverbed,
Besting the beasties of pantry molestings.
Now is our artisans’ industry recommensed,
Thanks to the man in the bright-coloured suiting.
Talent like you displayed must be well-recompensed,
Must be rewarded to honour your fluting.
How much I wish we could honour our promises,
Honour the price we agreed in our anguish –
But all of our shelves are so empty and ominous,
All of our prospects still fester and languish.
Nobody’s rich, and ev’ryone’s starving –
So let us rebuild, before you come carving
Your portions of nothing to meet your retainer agreed.
Give us some time, for trade to be mettled –
Pray, give us some time, and all will be settled.
Look to our children, and teach them to follow your lead.

The Woo, it Burns !

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pexels-photo-220957.jpeg
Photo by Nicole Rathmayr on Pexels.com

The Woo, it Burns !

Fortunes held within our palm,
Expensive herbs in ev’ry balm –
They rarely cure, but rarely harm:
The path to homeo.

Crystals glow by candle-light,
As chanting stems the parasite,
And leeches cure our ev’ry blight:
The path to homeo.

Demons cast from fevered minds,
With toxins flushed through our behinds,
And massage even cures the blind:
The path to homeo.

Hands are laid on cank’rous moles
And prayer is used for birth controls
As tiny needles prick our soles:
The path to homeo.

Bright Satanic Mills

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chariot

Bright Satanic Mills

My bow is of dull brown wood,
For gold does not spring –
My arrows have less divine good,
And more barbs to sting –
My spear is aimed not at cloud,
But targets more solid –
My chariot’s unburned and proud,
Efficient, if stolid.
Examined, explained, demystified,
There’s no room left for your god of Zion.
With science and reason, his will is defied –
For mine is a chariot of iron.

Felis schroedingi

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cat in box

Felis schroedingi

        1.
I burrow through the wicker bin
Beside your desk, a-froth therein
With pencil shavings, strüdel crumbs,
And paper balls of failed sums.
I’m rubbing up against your socks,
Or sharp’ning claws against your box,
Or lis’ning to your strange device
That clicks and squeaks like frightened mice.

But I don’t like the vial with the strong, sharp smell
And why have you a hammer, and a pivot-rig as well ?
You’re planning for some trial – uncertain times ahead –
Wearing is this clamour, and I’m feeling quite half-dead.

        2.
I mean, just what is life , anyway ?
I mean, crystals grow and all, don’t they ?
And viruses, they can even multiply,
And sperm can even swim, and twisters fly
And thinking machines – how do they fit in ?
And when does life end, and when does it begin ?

But you ain’t thinking ’bout any of this, are you ?
You’re thinking I have it and lost it, and both are still true
Not in any biological sense,
But only in a philosophic pretence.
Well, get over yourselves, it’s all down to chance:
My existence does not revolve around your ignorance.

        3.
I am not quantum.
There are not two of me.
I have not become
An equation or postulation or theory,
Some waveform waiting to collapse,
A merely-possible-perhaps,
Or psi-functional mixture of states
In decoherence to my many-worlds’ fates.

You think you must see me to know me ?
And they say cats are solipsists !
And yet you claim I’m floating free,
Where yes and no both co-exist.
Don’t flatter yourself – I notice too,
But I guess I just don’t matter –
You’ve got some nerve !
For only your magical-looking will do !
But remember, I too observe – and I’m watching you.

        4.
I’m one thing or the other,
I’m all this thing or that,
And whichever you discover,
Is right at where I’m at.
Because, whatever else I was,
Whatever else I am,
God damn !  Without caveat
I’m unbreakably all cat !

The Benthonaut

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octopus
Octopus by Nat Raum

The Benthonaut

Three-hearted, blue-blooded, copper in your veins,
Spending all your days just lounging on the reef,
Merging with the furniture, watching for the gains:
You pouncing, morphing, jetting, dancing, slinking, oozing thief,
You hunger-striking annual, blooming all too brief.
Bursting into action, but your stamina devoid,
You tremor-detecting, ink-ejecting, R-selecting chromataphoid.

With arms you cannot quite control in each particular,
Foraging and tasting with an independent mind.
Spirit-level eyes that will maintain their perpendicular,
With optic nerves all plugged-in from behind.
All of this intelligence, all of this complexity,
All this curiosity, all this raw dexterity;
And yet no society – such a lonely vexity you are –
And living far too short for such an eight-pointed superstar.

Sorry, Elizabeth

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big ben tower london
Photo by bruce mars on Pexels.com

Sorry, Elizabeth

“Big Ben is only the bell,”
You smugly tell,
But actu’lly, we already know.
Except you’re wrong:
It’s the bit that goes bong,
And ev’rything else, above and below.
Big Ben is the bell,
And the clock as well,
And even the whole bloody tower !
Ask any you meet
On Parli’ment Street
Whenever he’s chiming the hour.

Corvus niger

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selective focus photograph of black crow
Photo by Tom Swinnen on Pexels.com

Corvus niger

Why do ravens always wear black ?
Do they want to blend in with the pack ?
Are they just too shy to be pizzazz ?
Are they just too moody, cool and jazz ?
Why are they dressed in Sunday Best, not tweeds ?
Are they decked in mourning, veiled in widow’s weeds ?
Or are they maybe prison warders ?
Are they priests in holy orders ?
Are they fed’ral agents on the wing ?
Or do they merely want to go with ev’rything ?
Are they goths and metalheads – or maybe simply posh ?
Or are their other feathers in the wash ?
So why is it ravens always wear the black ?
(But if they dressed in mufty, I guess they’d get the sack.)

As a matter of fact, albino ravens do occassionally turn up, especially around Vancouver Island, as these gorgeous photos by Mike Yip show:

And while I’m at it, here’s a painting of one entitled Diwata by onrie07:

Lingua Inglese

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black and gray desk globe
Photo by fotografierende on Pexels.com

Lingua Inglese

It wasn’t a planned or a pre-destined course,
But brought on by conquest and culture and chance.
So half of the ears of the world are in reach,
And so many throats are alive to the word.
They flock to our phonemes that stream from our source,
Our syllables speak and their speakers advance –
For held on our tongues is the honey they teach,
That calls to the world and will always be heard.
But just as it rises, so shall this same force
Then favour another to make their tongues dance.
Our moment must pass – then our ripening peach
Shall sour their lips, with its stones spat and slurred.
Yet now all is golden, yet now they endorse
For all of its failings and spellings askance.
So use it and wisely and sweetly in speech,
For as long as its fluke is the fluke that’s preferred.

Omniphonics

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sign

Omniphonics

The beauty of English is all those who seek it
With all of their Anglisized ears.
The whole world is lis’ning, for evil or good,
Our blessing and curse is to be understood.
The beauty of English is ev’ryone speaks it –
The trouble is, ev’ryone hears.

We Need More Gods

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gods

We Need More Gods

Why just the same old almighty creator ?
Let’s have us a dozen, let’s restate our mission.
We have to deregulate sooner or later,
And open up faith to the free competition.
We must raise the funding and research the data,
To set up a pantheic-forming commission –
We ought to have choice in our heavenly pater
And hire the divine in an open audition.

Just think of the deities, wiser and greater,
With freedom to choose of which gods to petition –
They’re building their brand as a hero or traitor,
With two-for-one offers on prayers and remission –
And specialist markets will open to cater:
A Goddess of Love or a Wine-God musician –
And all supervised by the trade regulator,
To see they deliver on sin and perdition.