Dear Blog, in honour of today being World Poetry Day, I would like to introduce to you an old friend of mine...
Professor Gopnik W. Snodgrass-Smythe
In Memoriam
Lest we forget! (Or dare we remember…?), the sadly named G. Snodgrass-Smythe,
Who walked on this earth a gallump of a man! Gangling, elastic, and lithe…
The hair on his crown, from the nape to the for ‘ad, was wild, unruly and red,
And stayed on his top ‘til he was an old man. “It’s still the real thing!” He had said.
He rode to his work on a Penny and Farthing, his students would learn from him; Science.
If noise from the rear of the class was uttered, they would all hear him shout: “Compliance!”
He would leap from the front to the back of the class, two strides was all it would take,
And shove in the mouths of the loquacious children: two hamsters; a bird and a snake.
His orbital eyes would roll round and round in a journey of revolving displeasure,
And strange, squeaky noises would squirt from his mouth at a pitch that no-one could measure.
When the height of his temper, at vertiginous levels, caused steam to explode from his ears,
The top of his head would flip off like a lid, and expose his boiled brains to his peers.
***
A tiny white cottage with thatch on its roof, and leaded–light windows to boot,
At the end of a long, winding, overgrown lane was home, and he filled it with loot.
Every spare cupboard, and under the mattress, and even inside an old welly,
Were bursting with wads of the pecuniary kind, and some of it mouldy and smelly.
It was easy to notice, at close quarters they said, a proclivity for Garlic and Onions,
Perhaps for to disguise his penchant for Whisky, which he claimed was relief for his bunions.
Most curious of all, for many it seemed, was his vexillological behaviour,
And a Standard he raised in his garden each day to the Queen, whom he deemed was his saviour!
When that Professor Gopnik William Snodgrass-Smythe, a funny old fella was he,
Rode on a charabanc down to the beach and decided to swim in the sea,
Was surrounded by thousands of placoid creatures, who mistook him for cuttle-fish bone,
And on tasting those garlicky, malodorous legs, they thenceforth did leave him alone!
And so, to the end of our tale we do come. But wait! I have more yet to utter!
As Gopnik lay sleeping alone in his bed, his feet poking out through the shutter,
That dark, moonless night, on the eve of his birthday, robbers did visit his home.
Purloining his savings and running amuck, they even dropped his treasured tome.
The very next morning, on seeing the mess, old Gopnik he looped o’er the loop!
He ran around in such a two and an eight; they thought he would reach Guadeloupe.
But sadly, it seems, on that fate-ridden morning, one temper too many he unloaded,
And flipping the lid of his red coloured mane, his grey coloured brains exploded!
Oh dear.
Prostrate he reclines, with the moles and the worms, asleep in his elongulated box,
Reclaimed by Nature, by the forces that made him, recycling his wiry red locks…
R.I.P.
Professor Gopnik W. Snodgrass Smythe
Dear Blog, in honour of today being World Poetry Day, I would like to introduce to you an old friend of mine...
Professor Gopnik W. Snodgrass-Smythe
In Memoriam
Lest we forget! (Or dare we remember…?), the sadly named G. Snodgrass-Smythe,
Who walked on this earth a gallump of a man! Gangling, elastic, and lithe…
The hair on his crown, from the nape to the for ‘ad, was wild, unruly and red,
And stayed on his top ‘til he was an old man. “It’s still the real thing!” He had said.
He rode to his work on a Penny and Farthing, his students would learn from him; Science.
If noise from the rear of the class was uttered, they would all hear him shout: “Compliance!”
He would leap from the front to the back of the class, two strides was all it would take,
And shove in the mouths of the loquacious children: two hamsters; a bird and a snake.
His orbital eyes would roll round and round in a journey of revolving displeasure,
And strange, squeaky noises would squirt from his mouth at a pitch that no-one could measure.
When the height of his temper, at vertiginous levels, caused steam to explode from his ears,
The top of his head would flip off like a lid, and expose his boiled brains to his peers.
***
A tiny white cottage with thatch on its roof, and leaded–light windows to boot,
At the end of a long, winding, overgrown lane was home, and he filled it with loot.
Every spare cupboard, and under the mattress, and even inside an old welly,
Were bursting with wads of the pecuniary kind, and some of it mouldy and smelly.
It was easy to notice, at close quarters they said, a proclivity for Garlic and Onions,
Perhaps for to disguise his penchant for Whisky, which he claimed was relief for his bunions.
Most curious of all, for many it seemed, was his vexillological behaviour,
And a Standard he raised in his garden each day to the Queen, whom he deemed was his saviour!
When that Professor Gopnik William Snodgrass-Smythe, a funny old fella was he,
Rode on a charabanc down to the beach and decided to swim in the sea,
Was surrounded by thousands of placoid creatures, who mistook him for cuttle-fish bone,
And on tasting those garlicky, malodorous legs, they thenceforth did leave him alone!
***
And so, to the end of our tale we do come. But wait! I have more yet to utter!
As Gopnik lay sleeping alone in his bed, his feet poking out through the shutter,
That dark, moonless night, on the eve of his birthday, robbers did visit his home.
Purloining his savings and running amuck, they even dropped his treasured tome.
The very next morning, on seeing the mess, old Gopnik he looped o’er the loop!
He ran around in such a two and an eight; they thought he would reach Guadeloupe.
But sadly, it seems, on that fate-ridden morning, one temper too many he unloaded,
And flipping the lid of his red coloured mane, his grey coloured brains exploded!
Oh dear.
***
Prostrate he reclines, with the moles and the worms, asleep in his elongulated box,
Reclaimed by Nature, by the forces that made him, recycling his wiry red locks…
R.I.P.