Sunday 27 March 2011

Sestina Day 14: Oyster Rights!

I have been challenged to write a sestina about yesterday's protests in London. That's not come out right, yet.
In the meantime, I offer you a different protest manifesto: That of the oysters fighting oppression by the Walrus & the Carpenter.
Just a bit of Lewis Carrol themed fun.

You should never trust a walrus
Or believe a carpenter
For both will lead you down the sand
To talk of kings and cabbages
And though youll find it rather odd,
You will not know you're to be eaten

Many oysters have been eaten
By the carpenter and walrus
Anyone caught acting odd-
Ly, looking like a carpenter
And Telling you of cabbages
And kings while walking on the sand

Should be reported, for the sand
Is where most oysters have been eaten
Vinegar and cabbages
Are danger signs, as is a walrus
With a dodgy carpenter
Whose words and actions seem quite odd,

Do not assume that these 2 odd-
Ball characters are kind. Like sand
They're shifty. watch the carpenter
Especially or you'll be eaten.
He's the greedy one. The walrus,
Though he'll talk of cabbages,

likes oysters more than cabbages
Which, we admit, is scarcely odd
An ocean carnivore, the walrus
Is the terror of the sands
And all he's ever done is eaten
Decent oysters. Carpenter:

Go home! Oh leave us, carpenter!
Go back to eating cabbages!
We oysters don't want to be eaten
And anyway we taste quite odd.
The carpenter must leave our sands -
And he can take his friend the walrus!

We'll stay uneaten, carpenter!
Go, Feed the walrus cabbages!
Leave us: the oddballs of the sand!

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