Candirus – do they ? No. They don’t. Firstly they can’t, And second, they won’t. They parasite gills – Not penises, ever. They’d suffocate up there – That wouldn’t be clever.
They don’t swim up pee-streams (Even if laminar), Cos fluid dynamics Need far too much stamina. They haven’t a tool To wedge your tool wide, Nor have they the strength To push-up inside.
So next time you’re spreading A rumour or two That deep down you desp’rately Want to be true, When pissing on truth Cos it pleases your gut – Recall the candirus And keep your hole shut.
A neighbour, it was, who alerted us, Alerted himself by the muffles within – Apologising for making a fuss, “I’m no busybody, and she’s hardly kin, That’s why it took me this long to call – If only I knew my neighbours at all.”
I worked for the landlord’s agent, so I grabbed my coat and signed-out keys And hopped on a passing 220 To Fulham, above the Cantonese, Lift not working, second floor, With a gentle tap upon the door –
No reply, except some mewing – So I rapped again, then risked the lock, Announcing myself and what I was doing – A sudden guest can be quite a shock. Nobody home (though the stench was strong) – It turned out I was very wrong.
She sat upon her sofa, asleep, With two cats guarding her, agitated, The kitchen another three cats deep, And a sixth who snuck in while I waited, Calico, Siamese, blacks and tawny, Most of them hissing, all of them scrawny.
I knelt down beside the tenant then, Gently touched the back of her hand – The coldness a jolt, but I touched her agen, And all I could think of was all I’d got planned For that afternoon – all now postponed, While windows were opened and constables phoned.
The cats were making ev’rything harder, They’d made a mess, and were clearly starving – I found some tins of food in the larder, The way they fell upon it was jarring. Flies aplenty upon the ceilings, I fought down all my nauseous feelings.
The undertakers had taken her By six, so careful and so unblinking. I stayed away in the kitchen, shaken, Stroking the cats to stop from thinking. The PCs left the place to me, The neighbour popped-in with a cup of tea.
“I don’t think she had family, really, Kept herself alone, poor mite, Except her cats, she loved them dearly – What’ll become of them, tonight ?” I scooped one up to work her charms, Into his unexpecting arms.
Another neighbour took another, I badgered the landlord to take a brace, And one to my less-than-happy mother, And as for the last, she’s at my place – This job, right down to its chromosomes, Is all about providing homes.
The Ocean Sunfish, Mola mola – Why the adjective at all ? Why the need for double mola ? Is it cos they’re so un-small ? Just a puffed-up pufferfish, And over-named to double-check – It moons around encumbered By this millstone round its neck. And yet, it turns out, other sunfish Share the genus and the name – And even unrelated fish Are rashly called the same. So fair enough, the ocean kind Is thusly dubbed to be precise. And as for mola-of-the-Mola – It’s so good, they named it twice.
Once were dragons, so they say, In ancient times on ancient hills, In red and gold and green and grey, And some with teeth, and some with bills. They say they slept in riverbeds, Or lived in caves beneath the bats, And some were spawned with seven heads, And some would flock as thick as gnats.
Here be dragons, once-a-time, Their shrieks were oft upon the breeze, They flew where only geese could climb, And nested in the tallest trees. Their breath was hot, their blood was cold, Their snorts would burst in fiery jets. They snatched the sheep from out the fold, And plucked the fish from out the nets.
Here were dragons, hereabouts, With glossy coats of chequered scales, And some with whiskers on their snouts, And some with manes and feathered tails. Dragons ! Dragons, ev’rywhere ! A horde of wyverns, so it’s said. But none was safe within its lair From he who bore the Cross of Red.
Good old George – he fills the aisles As England’s saviour, brave and true. We love to hear his quests and trials, The wily beasts he stalked and slew. He chased the wyrm from out these Isles – But how I wish he’d spared a few ! If folks can live with crocodiles, They could have lived with dragons, too.
To my mind, at least, For all their charms, A starfish only has five arms – Or fewer, I guess – the occasional fours – Those species (or mutants ?) from stranger shores. And then there are those that have been in the wars, And still clearly lack what they’ve yet to grow back. But more than five, at least to me, Must clearly be a sea-star, see ? Now, I have no idea how far or near they are, The -fish and -star – If species with x-number limbs displayed Are brothers-in-arms within a clade ?- Or whether an extra arm or three Is all within the family ? But since the urchins are based on fives, And brittles and dollars and cucumbers too, It does seem like the higher numbers are the lives with something new.
But when you tell me not to call them (Any of them) as starfish, I’m sorry, I cannot grant your wish. You claim that they ain’t fish in fact, They broke off from the stem before The backbone got I on the act. But what the hell ? There’s plenty more, Like jelly-, silver- and shell-fish by the score, Which are even further from the core ! The word is Anglo-Saxon And it simply meant a creature from the sea, But now you claim the taxon Is whatever you decide that it must be. And then you say that we are fish as well, It’s in our genes, you tell – Well yes, but then the fishy way you preach Is stinking up your speech. I know that I’m a vertebrate – That I am closer to a lungfish Than a lungfish is to any trout. But that’s not what I’m on about – It’s not the science that I hate, But how you cannot separate The mathematic from the ev’ryday. So would you really try to ban the lot ? The sea-horse is no horse, you say. (The hippopotamus is not A real river-horse, of course – But that’s in Greek, so seemingly okay.)
You want me to favour the sea-star for starfish, So even the fives will henceforth be Now sea-stars in perpetuity. But that still makes no sense to me – They may not be strictly fishes like we are, But stranger by far to name them after a star !
I saw an organ grinder and his capuchin the other day – He made an awful racket, and the monkey didn’t want to play, And no surprise !, the poor bedraggled creature looked a broken thing, Half-starved and half-exhausted, on a short and fraying string. The organist was little better – no musician with a skill – He simply turned the handle to produce the loud and flat and shrill.
I ought to add, this wasn’t in a smart and swanky part of town, Because the rich have constables to move them on and shut them down. Instead, they haunt the humble in the poorest, foulest thoroughfare, In begging half a penny from the folks who haven’t one to spare. But still I stopped, and watched that doleful monkey, as his master hawked, And wondered what he might have dreamt of, if he only could have talked…
“I’d rather be a monkey than an organ grinder, any day – We monkeys gets to leap and dance, and gen’rally to have our way, And sport a hand-made uniform, and all the grapes that we can eat, And always play to cheering crowds from Berkeley Square to Gower Street. And yet the world is quick to view me as a lackey or buffoon – But grinders only get to grind, and grind, and grind all afternoon.”
I saw an organ grinder and his capuchin the other day – And shared a knowing look, we three, of how they’d soon be swept away.
I’m far too much busy just watching these wonderful creatures To care for your grammar. They’re so like the ferrets and martens in habit and features – They drown out your clamour. They aren’t, though, that closely related (they’re closer to panthers), They just look the same – For evolution converges on similar answers, And so does their name.
And if I ask, she might commence To stroll with me upon the croft, And though I know she’s happy hence To never cross our friendship’s fence, I pray she’ll learn how much I wish I’d doffed My shy concern, and share those eyes so soft – And with this burn, I call on Providence That we may chance discern to glimpse that fabled herd aloft.
For surely must her ’mazement form As pigs come gliding from the west, And may she gape in wonder warm As grunting gammons flock and swarm. Atop the trees, the sows are in the nest. Upon the breeze, the shoats are cherubs blest – Such hogs she sees ! These razorbacks in storm Shall rend her heart’s decrees and forge sublime within her breast.
And ev’ry time their trotters pound For ham-thrust launch, so ardour springs. And ev’ry volant-piglet’s sound Of flapping brings such sighs profound. These airborne swine, these porkers shot from slings, These boars divine, these swooping, free-range kings, Such hope they mine when soaring heaven-bound – These aeronauts porcine shall speed her love on bacon wings.
Christmas morning, along the canal, As we strolled passed the swans who had lost all their grey, Between the old works and the back of the mall, We watched as the swans chased their cygnets away.
The cob and the pen were a pair of old thugs, On Christmas morning along the canal – They drove out their rivals for duckweed and slugs, And sent their kin flying off over the mall.
Frozen or starving or prey to a fox – Their parents don’t care, but then that’s nature’s way. We watched as the swans taught their children hard knocks, Along the canal on a cold Christmas Day.
I would just point out that ‘canal’ and ‘mall’ do rhyme, despite the current trend to ape the Americans.
Rhyming Couplets 