The Kings of Old

A carol.

The kings of old wore purple and gold
while children in rags knew hunger and pain.
They sacrificed to idols of clay,
their blood and their labour they offered in vain.
A child is laid in a manger,
yet princes bow down and presents they bring:
Now sing, choirs of angels,
proclaim to the world the newborn King!

The kings of old in darkness and cold
abandoned all hope and thought themselves wise.
The children ask, ‘Is there nothing better?
If night is for ever, why do we have eyes?’
But a star shines in the darkness,
and green is the tree that promises spring.
Rejoice, all who sorrow:
a new life begins when Christ is King!

The kings of old, their people they sold,
enslaved them in lies, enchained them in sins,
despair and death in sad iteration—
Each generation ends as it begins.
A way leads out of the prison,
and Heaven’s bright gates are beckoning:
Hear, all ye nations,
and all shall be free in Christ the King!

Frustration

A Vogon poem
In honour of the Technical Documents.

Why won’t you understand?
It’s so simple a child could do it.
You only need to be willing to learn
And master the Splectic Method.

Now this is the Splectic Method,
So called because the dinobial splexum,
Instead of flanding perobically,
Is isoporadic and pletcher-free
With respect to the fornic tondle.
It’s so simple a child could do it.
Now counterforadically frendle the fremm
(Taking care not to pindle the retrofuge)
To mark the axis of co-quixation,
To fiddle the faddle and squink the squonk,
And that is the Splectic Method.

But first,
Take care that the dectic relambature,
Instead of flanding perobically,
Is isoporadic and pletcher-free
With respect to the flange of the splexum.
You only need to be willing to learn
To adjust the flinding renoberator
To less than the critical crillament
Of the anasybotic trexus.
And once you have tannelled the trexus
(Taking care not to pindle the retrofuge)
You mark the axis of co-quixation,
To fiddle the faddle and squink the squonk,
And that is the Splectic Method.

Oh, dear!
You didn’t refrux the relambature,
And now the frinch is deplenerated
And starting to fland perobically,
Not isoporadic or pletcher-free
with respect to the orthozonabulum.
Why won’t you understand?
You have ruined the whole dyspractic.
You have even pindled the retrofuge,
In spite of my simple instructions,
As clear as the peridenobic fluid,
(Or rather, as clear as it used to be
Before you disprickled the peridenobes).
It’s so simple a child could do it.
You only had to be willing to learn,
And master the Splectic Method.

     (Signed)
     H. Smiggy McStudge

If you see

If you see a man with no legs,
you shall command him to get up and run.

If he still does not run,
he is only doing it to spite you,
because everything is always about you.

For this he must be punished.

So you shall cut off his arms
and command him to juggle.

   H. Smiggy McStudge

Out of the cage

A beast with tawny fur and wistful eyes
   stares down the world through bars of serried steel.
He knows not why his life is held in prize;
   all else is guesswork, but the cage is real.
The keeper brings him food, but not release;
   the metal is for burnishing, not breaking.
Each passing day, the doubt and fear increase;
   each night brings dreams uncaged, and bitter waking.
Why is a mouse in such a prison pent,
as vermin, pet, or cold experiment?

Or was it fear forged this accursed place,
   fear of a vengeance fatal if set free?
Is it a king that frets his futile pace,
   shorn of his mane as of his liberty?
He tries his strength, but cannot take its measure:
   greater or less, the bars are stronger still.
No purpose, no escape, but deathly leisure,
   a wasted wrath, an ever thwarted will.
Did He Who made the lion make the cage,
and make him strong for naught but useless rage?

* * * *

   The lock is sprung:— the beast escapes its house.
   Which is it, then: the lion or the mouse?

Jeremiah

A song I sing to cheer up when I’m tempted to feel sorry for myself. The music exists and could be made available, supposing anyone wanted it, but it’s not in machine-readable form and would be a bother to transcribe. It’s a ghastly tune, about halfway between a polka and ‘The Volga Boatmen’.

My notes don’t include any exact dates, but I wrote this about fifteen years ago.

 

Jeremiah

The day you left me, the war broke out;
I stubbed my big toe and it made me shout.
My next door neighbour took her husband’s life;
I lost my keys and my Swiss Army knife.

Oh, the shame! Oh, the pain!
All my life running down the drain—
And then it started to rain—
And then my goldfish died.

The day you left me, the markets crashed;
I had a hangover ’cos I got smashed.
A mad assassin tried to kill the Queen;
I lost a quarter in a vending machine.

Oh, the shame! Oh, the pain!
All my life running down the drain—
And then it started to rain—
And then my goldfish died.

[Spoken over bridge:

I’ll never forget the sight of poor little Jeremiah, floating belly-up in his bowl. Why didn’t anybody tell me Ty-D-Bol is not for use in cleaning fish tanks?

I think I’m gonna sue someone.]

The day you left me, the H-bombs fell:
Five hundred million people blown to hell.
Millions are homeless ’cos their slums got sold,
And I’m bummed out because my coffee is cold.

Oh, the shame! Oh, the pain!
All my life running down the drain—
And then it started to rain—
And then my goldfish died.

Oh, the shame! Oh, the pain!
Flushing Jeremiah down the drain—
And then it started to rain—

Misquotha

I just heard the dandiest bit of verse. Apparently some of these fantasy guys do rhymes from time to time — who knew? Anyway this guy, who wrote the novelization of the Lord of the Rings films or something, wrote a few lines about trying to get hold of his agent or something. They went something kind of sort of like this:

Dial Nine for an outside line, under the sky,
Seven for a techie in his hall of stone,
Three for an Elf-king who’s probably high,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne
in the deep Long Distance where the Phone Bills lie.
One Ring to call them all,
One Ring to bind them,
One Ring to go to voicemail
where you’ll never find them,
in the deep Long Distance where the Phone Bills lie.

Magic Dragon plc

For the director of music. 12-bar blues.

I’m sure you know already, for you must have heard the tale,
of a certain Magic Dragon and his coat of shining scales;
how little Jackie Paper came to play with him no more.
But Puff would soon recover once he found a brand-new roar.
Now he’s traded on the Stock Exchange, a limited company,
and he’s listed on the Board as Magic Dragon plc. [Read more…]

The road mistaken

Dearest, this is not the end:
Death received us long ago.
Where two roads crossed in the snow,
we looked round each deceiving bend;
where others trod we feared to go.
It was then we chose to die:
This is not the end. [Read more…]

30

When I became a man, they said,
I’d put away these childish things:
these princesses too fair to wed,
these elves and dragons, phials and rings. [Read more…]

Rooms to let, furnished

A hearth with seasoned oak and tinder laid
awaits a spark to set the fuel ablaze,
and on the mantel, blooms that never fade
   defy the count of days.  [Read more…]