Lambkin

For someone I once knew, (or thought I did.)

 

Dear old Lambkin built a ship

with timbers from his mother’s lip

and tar squeezed out of fairy tales

telly screens and killer whales;

a mainsail woven out of guff

from magazines and horoscopes

and ropes spun out of grandma’s past,

a mast of special see-through glass.

Out to the Sea of Love he sailed~

and as at last he sunk the land

behind his slender, frail stern, 

the plan he’d planned got out of hand:

with naught another sail to see

just creatures risen from the deep,

deformed, lopsided, overbearing,

scaly buggers (monstrous beaks).

Some enraged at lovers past

spat caustic bile upon his mast.

Others cowed by vicious exes

screamed down from their crucifixes.

Frigid monsters (icy breath)

did huff and puff to speed his death

and randy ones with siren calls

rained warts the size of cannon balls.

Still Lambkin bravely fought the fight, 

though the sea got savage, day got night

and crimson tears of virgin blood,

suffered the hold to fill and flood;

and as each blast of steriod cream

split wide his vessel down the beam

he plunged into the murky still

not quite thirty, (though quite ill). 

Reviews

[James]

Wow, I'm surprised this hasn't gotten more attention. A very sad ending.

[Taylor]

First of all, Fergul, I like the rhyme and meter. Whenever I review a poem, I feel woefully inadequate since I know little to nil about it, generally don't read it and most of the time don't understand it. So, how's that for a disclaimer? Thus, if you needed it, permission to ignore this whole "review." For me, it speaks to the reality vs. ethereal nature of "love" as in attraction. How we embark on a relationship despite a frail foundation and in the course of its playing out, bizarre things happen which ultimately lead to self-destruction. Probably most of us have been through that. Maybe that's not what you intended with the poem but that's the message I took from it. For me, that's a good message -- and I like the sense of a ballad used to tell it.

[fergul]

Thanks, but it's a horror story rather than a good one.

[A. H. Pinley]

Nice flow! Tells a good story.