There’s something strange about forenames In the Anglophonic world – We’re pretty relaxed about the unusual (Like Sue for a boy and Manson for a girl). I was saying as much To Anglophone Sutch.
“Ah well,” he replied, “we’ve always been So easy going in our names. Indeed, we’re laissez-faire to a fault, And sometimes turn our children into games. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t care – Why, ask my daughter, Laissez-Faire !”
“Could it be a Protestant thing ?” I asked him, but he shook his head. “Denmark, Iceland, Germany, Are just as strict as Spain” he said. “But why not ask a registrar ?” And so I turned to Proddy Parr.
“We’re under orders not to interfere,” She told me, “more or less – So just last week, I registered An ‘Octopus’, a ‘Table’ and a ‘Mess’. Little Britons set to make their mark, Like ‘Superman’ and ‘Sharky-Shark’.”
“That said, we do have, on occasion, Cause to be a prudent voice To overly-creative parents, When their child will have to bear their choice. It only takes a quiet word To stop a ‘Clitoris’ or ‘Turd’.”
“But by and large, we’re mostly made Of Johns and Janes, and that’s okay – We’ve got the choice, though, that’s the point ! It seems to work, so what they hey.” And that is why, my darling child, I named you Unverboten Wilde !
I wonder what the First of November is like In the depths of Hell ? A day, perhaps, when demons all go on strike And stay in their shell – A lazy morning, then walking the three-headed dogs And feeding the trolls, Or taking the chance to restock the brimstone logs And polish the skulls. Packing the trident away along with the horns For the rest of the year, And binging on soaps with the grandkid-demonspawns And an ice-cold beer. And somewhere, in some office, some poor devil Stares at a screen, And starts to draw up plans at the management level For next Halloween.
The Destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah by John Martin
A Walk Through the End of Days
I never thought Catastrophe Would be as beautiful as this, That Ragnarok at sunset Is a moment of such bliss. So peaceful is Apocalypse, So languid is the End of Time – The Armageddons come and go, But were they ever this sublime ?
So come, my dear, Come and let us stroll awhile, To seek the lesser-spotted troll That builds its nest beneath the stile, As angels circle with the hawks, And demons gad on Sunday walks, And banshees squawk and phantoms play And the Ending of the World’s a world away.
We’re told and told we’re living through The cataclysmic Final Days: Where wrath is wrought on wretched waifs Who sup with Jews and gays. Yet brimstone seems in short supply, And so too human sacrifice – Just people getting on with lives Amid the unseen Antichrist.
So come, my dear, Come and let us wend a path That takes us further round the bend To promised bloody aftermath. Let’s walk with blacks and greens and reds Before the sky falls on our heads, And, hand-in-hand, let’s thread our way Through the law-abiding wastes of Judgement Day.
Innocent spiders close down schools When ignorant humans panic. Why the hell are we so prepared To see them as Satanic ? We wonder why our schools are broke, And all our nerves are fried – Yet choose which phobias we’ll stoke, And wear our hates with pride – It only takes the merest sight To send us shrieking with delight. Our fears are learned, and screeching Just ain’t what our schools should teach in.
Far, far better we learn to love The harmless ones, at least – Let our babies play with monies, Let our kids embrace the beast. Rearing spinners out of eggs, And never let the wolves repulse – Daddy, bring a daddy-longlegs, Mama, bring a widow-false – Or better yet, we should be shown To watch awhile, then leave alone. And maybe then, here’s hoping, Then the schools can all stay open.
It was late o’clock in late October, I recall, As I buttoned up my coat and set off home – My hours in the library had still left no trace, The depths of my mind were whipped to foam. So, keen to sooner reach out to my waiting bed, I took a shortcut past the ancient church – And in my barely-woken walk I stumbled through the graves, As I fancied how their folks might up-and-lurch.
But I never thought they would… But I never thought they’d push the slabs aside… And yet, here were their skeletons Just walking round as if they’d never died ! Good thing I was overtired, Or else I’d surely have to scream and hide…
Paralysed by shivering and weariness, For the sight of all those bones had rattled me – But most because I’d spent all week to memorise On the finer points of man’s anatomy. And as I looked in horrified astonishment, A prayer had made its way onto my lips: “The head bone is connected to the vertebrae, And the metacarpals to the fingertips.”
But I never thought they could… Yet I never had the chance before to watch the dead. And yes, the hour was very late, But then, well, so were they ! Yet there they tread – And right there in the flesh… Or, excuse me, out the flesh, I should have said.
I saw upon those skeletons the marks of busy lives, Like bones that once had broken and re-set – I saw some more with fractures, some with cancers, some with spurs, In a lesson I could never now forget ! Their joints had lost their cartilage, yet showed no trace of arthritis, Where bones were grinding naked onto bones, And osteoporosis having tapered some so thin, Yet so carelessly they danced around the stones.
And I’ve never understood… But I suddenly remembered ev’ry word I’d read – These visions were impossible, Because of ev’ry fact that popped-up in my head And I was overcome, And I dropped down in exhaustion on my grassy bed.
And when I woke up, slowly woke up, propped against a gravestone, Quite alone in my new neighbourhood – Well, I dusted off the dew and I made my way to class, To a test I had to pass – and knew I would. Now I cannot expect you to believe a single word of it, Yet deep down in my marrow, there’s a shred… Though I looked around the churchyard on that morning as I left And saw ev’rything was still and very dead.
But I never said you should… Don’t believe my ev’ry no-word-of-a-lie – And as a trainee-medic, I will always trust in science till I die. But whatever did occur that night, I’ll always know one thing – dem bones ain’t dry !
I am a little bit embarrassed to admit that ‘arthritis’ above needs to be stressed on the first syllable instead of the second to fit the rhythm, but I can’t be that embarrassed since I haven’t removed it.
Pumpkin, oh plumpling, oh hideous mutant ! The hothouse of Hades is where you were born ! Nobody thinks of your yellow-starred flowers, They only remember your potbellied spawn.
An fragile annual, a delicate diva, Confined to the plots of the greenhouse and garden. You won’t survive long in the wastelands and margins, Where squirrels will eat you before you can harden.
Sclerosified skin in an orange-palled jaundice, With five-fingered leaves and with deep, sucking roots, And a hunger voracious to fatten grotesquely Your thickly-pus’d tumours, your Frankenstein fruits.
So pump up the pumpkins, fatter and fatter, You’re nothing but water and tasteless matter – Your heads then trepanned to scoop out your cortex, Yet still you’re invading our legends and doorsteps.
Yet many won’t make it – mistakes of blind nature, All twisted or stunted, or rotting while still on the vine. And if they’re not ripe by the first frost, they’re lost. Oh Lord, what have we created ? Oh monstrous design !
Have you heard how crime is falling, Muggings at an all-time low ? Murders, rapes, are miniscule Compared with fifty years ago. So when you’re walking back tonight, The odds are very much in favour Of you getting home alright.
So when the shadows rustle And your heartbeats dance a jitterbug, You’re almost surely not about To face a psycho or a thug. The cold wind sighs, the lone fox yelps, But rest assured you’re probably okay – I hope that helps.
That moment on a sleepless night Whose darkness isn’t quite as pitch as tar, All thanks to the full moon’s eerie light That serves to point out where the shadows are –
That moment when its gloomy shaft Is broken up by something on the wing, And underscored by the whistling draught, As the floorboards knock and the radiators sing –
That moment when a rustle sighs, And somewhere else a big clock ticks too slow, And the nearby buzz of courting flies, And the distant screech of an owl, or maybe a crow –
That moment when we feel a chill, And sense an electric tension in the air, And it always takes an act of will To tell ourselves there’s nothing really there –
If you should ever find yourself Eye to eye with the Devil himself, If you should ever find yourself Face to face with the face of Hell, Then hold his gaze as long a spell As you can hold that gaze. And when you blink, (you will blink first), Then do not think your chances cursed, But show him as your eyelids rise A pair of still and steely eyes That stare out straight and sharp and wise, That no reflex shall maze.
Please give me someone to hate – A politician to despise, To slander and dehumanise And make a monster in my eyes.
Please come and stoke-up my hate – Give me a minister to stone, Legitimise my constant moan, And whistle in an undertone.
Please let me bask in my hate To justify my diva tears – I’m longing to believe the smears, I’m relishing exquisite fears.
Please let me trumpet my hate, And wear my spite with friendly pride, And close my ears to the other side, And let no compromise abide.
Or else, let me calm my head, And tell myself its only politics, And tell myself its only bate and click, And tell myself I’ve fallen for the Devil’s oldest trick:
For the greatest lie he ever told Was telling us that he existed – Yet his realm is deathly cold, And human nature always twisted.
What I’ve learned is true, From the playground to Big Ben Is that the evil that men do, is done by men. (And these days, women too.)
So show me a politician And I’ll shake them by the hand As I tell them of my mission To frustrate their wonderland –
And if I lose, I hope that I Can choose to walk away before I lie And cheat for the greater good, And lose my common brotherhood.
For ev’ry politician is a person, Not the enemy – For even as we fight them, we must love them, Show them dignity,
Or we shall never understand their motives, Why they’re voted in, If we’re convinced they’re purley evil And their public steeped in sin.
We must, we must be better than this, Resist the overwrought and thunderous – If we believe in demons, then we fall to the abyss Where the only savage monsters will be us.
Rhyming Couplets 