91�ȱ�

The Fruit-Cake Eaters

"Courage!" he said, and pointed to the tap,
"and make thou it a pint, they’ll be here soon"
In the afternoon her maj came to a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
But round the green, a fetid air did swoon,
whiffing like one that hath a wonky drain.
Fair bodged was Jason’s palace in the noon
And like a downward smoke, a slender stream of brownish gunk to fall and pause and fall did seem.

A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping on to linda’s lawn, did go;
And some thro' cellar walls and fences broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the malod’rous river outward flow
From the new made lavs: inside, three job-lot slops,
bought cheap from dodgy van on hill of snow,
Stood all o’er-flush'd: Jase, dew'd with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pipe with spanner, wrench and mops

The stench of sewage lingered low adown
in Betty’s shop: thro' country park the mire
extends far inland, through yellow fields planted with rape,
and many a barbed wire
And meadow rise, and new made crawfordale;
A land where all things always seem'd the same!
But round about the green with faces pale,
Glum faces pale against that fetid lane
The long-baked melancholy fruit-cake-eaters came.

Tressles they saved, from that infernal stench,
Laden with tea and scones, whereof they gave
To each, but whoso did receive of them,
And taste, to him the access at all time,
made not the brew taste less of sewage-slime
For truly had the soil seep’d through the urn.

O royal party, do not Ambridge spurn
Cried Peg, prostrate afore the muck-drenched merc
In which the fleeing royals , half bezerk, did seek to fly;
‘Out of my way, mad crone’ the Duke of Edinburgh did then intone
The Monarch begged her ragged driver brake
‘Forgive the sad old German’ then she spake
“Viagra hath him maddened, I do fear
Now, tell me Mrs Wool, who hath one here”

And so in fawning tones Peg did present
First humble-hearted Shula and her spawn
The gracious Daniel, prostrate on the lawn
Did flash his eye and suddenly a chill
Ran up One’s spine….Thou must be Jill…
“Oh Marm , accept my humble jar of jam
From precious brambles fashioned, by the am,
And perfect boiled at constant temperature
Vouchsafe’d by Barford’s great thermometer”

With fresh disdain the royal brow did crease
‘Oh surely not more bleedin’ Jam, pur lease’
Thought she, but could not give full vent
To her malignity, for from the tent
An anguished cry did rise, and gurgling wave
Of sludge, gushed down , engulfing queen and slave
As great Vesuvius crushed Pompeian pride

So did the effluent wave in its foul tide
Bring down the monarch, and her wimpering brood,
With Peg and Shula swept by stinking flood
Their screams and faces lost beneath the foam
Then some one said ‘They will return no more!”
And all at once they sang ‘Our island home
Is now beyond their power; they will no longer reign!”