This is a poem inspired by Lewis Carrol's spectacular poem "The White Knights song". It will clear to anyone whose read it (and I urge you to read it) that my poem is very similar but that was the idea. I wanted to have the same sort of poem but in a different context. Anyway enjoy!
I came across a man one day,
of the gruffest stock.
With ravaged hands and thickened arms
from working at the docks.
I spied the mess of blood and dust
that glazed his ragged coat.
While sluggish swigs of fiery ale
trickled down his throat.
Yet just as I began to speak
he beat me to my words.
And began a tale to match his voice-
shockingly absurd.
He told me of his days at sea
upon a valiant vessel,
With a captain who wore on his head,
a mortar and a pessel!
“The ship was named ‘Bewilderment’!
She was painted copper blue!”
He bellowed with the soundest wit,
“I tell you it’s all true!”
Swirls of wist and twirls of wonder
danced within my mind.
“Tell me more oh travelled sir
If you’d be so kind!”
“Do not fret young billyscamp
for my yarn is not complete
I haven’t spoke of the merry time
I tasted sparrows feet!
Why I’ve met a man whose met a man
that search for butterflies
and with his quick and practised hands
made them into mutton-pies.”
“Once inside a dainty inn
I sang myself to sleep.
And emerged amisdt the land of dreams
and dined with fourteen sheep.”
“We toasted life and ate our fill
of fine imported hay.
For that is what a sheep must do
when all is bright and gay.”
-“And all was bright and gay!”
Astounded was my callow mind
to hear of distant lands.
I vowed I’d follow in the steps
of this queer man.
He carried on to tell of how
he’d dived beneath the waves,
to cities made of garnetts
where noone ever shaves.
“There I spent a quiet night
playing cards and chess,
with a friendly man whose splendid beard
lay in a lengthened mess.”
By now the moon had risen
in the inky sky.
And I could see a weariness
in his ever-glinting eyes.
“But that concludes my tale,” he said.
He stroked his whiskers white.
“I cannot sail for ever.
I must say goodnight.”
Since then I have seen many things
and been to distant lands.
But none have seemed as wonderous
as that absurd man.
