Toad of Toad Hall: Flirting In The Edwardian Age
Toad of Toad Hall thought he had it all
even though his Rolls-Royce lost a duel with brick wall
He thought he’d venture forth to London for a few days
As cows ate his flower show flowers during their mid-morning graze
So he would not win this year’s flower show’s top prize
but it would spare the judges allergic tear swelling eyes
With his Rolls-Royce back from the blacksmith looking good as new
He invited Rat, Mole and Badger to join his city venturing crew
To London they went and stayed at a grand hotel
Just up from the palace in a district so swell
Rat, Mole and Badger went to visit city markets
While Toad set his eyes on more pleasing targets
He went backstage to a London theatre show
And entered an actress’ dressing room with his heart all aglow
He got thrown out in the lane with fake theatre stage snow
And left London claiming entry in Oxford’s Thames boat row.
Famous London stage actress Lily Elsie to the London Daily News:
“I did not have any sort of relations with that toad Toad of Toad Hall.”
-A poem written by Christopher
Tuesday July 7th 2020.
Toad of Toad Hall: An Early July Evening’s Dream
Toad of Toad Hall was having a ball
but forgetting to send invitations to all
He spent the evening dancing by himself
And looking at all those bottles of booze on the shelf
“If I drank them all, I’d have quite the hangover
And wouldn’t be sober enough to spot a 4-leaf clover”
So Toad went upstairs and gazed at his portrait
“My God, you look resplendent, my mate”.
The portrait was painted by Amedeo Modigliani
And showed Toad smacking a maidservant on the fanny
He was warned not to show the portrait to suffragettes
Or he might lose some body parts not so repairable by vets.
Toad went downstairs and sat in his favourite chair
And thought to himself, “How green’s my underwear”
He got his valet to bring him some absinthe
because Toad of Toad Hall lacked common sense
And having partook much of the Green Fairy
He fell asleep because he felt so weary.
Toad dreamed he was smelling some blossoms of cherries
As he strode through woods in search of Titania Queen of Fairies
For Toad fancied he and Titania were lovers
As amphibian sighed happily under his covers
And there by soft yonder gleam of elegant moonlight
Toad of Toad Hall encountered a most frightful sight
Nick Bottom that most uneloquent jackass
Was making of Queen Titania his most bonnie lass
Toad’s poor heart was not made of stone
As he listened to Titania’s pleasurable moan
The amphibian’s tender heart did up and break
And imagined wedding nuptials would ‘stead become his wake
As he traversed through the woods in search of a poisoned gourd
He by chance stumbled upon the great Pyramis’ sword
He thrust the sword through his chest
Saying “Cruel fate! Give it a rest!”.
They buried Toad on the other side of the stream
As Rat, Badger and Mole wished it was but a dream
King Oberon heard their wish as he rode a moonbeam
and Toad awakened to the sound of tea kettle steam
-A poem written by Christopher
Sunday July 5th 2020
inspired by Kenneth Graham’s
The Wind In The Willows
and
William Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Toad of Toad Hall
Toad of Toad Hall
Motorbike came to a crawl
As petrol had leaked in bike stall
So Toad took his car keys out of a jar
And went for a spin in his motor car
But when he hit a tree, it gave his car a dent
But since he owned Toad Hall, he didn’t pay any rent
He took his motor boat for a ride down the river
With Dodds for his kidneys and gin for his liver
He passed Mole, Rat and Badger in a row boat
And not watching his way, he hit a castle moat
But lucky for him, his life jacket did float
-A poem written by Christopher
Tuesday July 2nd 2020
Inspired by the characters in
Kenneth Grahame’s
novel
The Wind In The Willows.
Marianne de Lilith
Marianne de Lililth
Carson Cody Albion sat in his private eye office
From his window, he could get a good view of parts of the city burning
The private eye felt hungry so he ordered a pizza to be delivered to his office
Unbeknownst to Albion, the courier got his orders mixed-up
A pizza that was to be delivered to the leader of a rival gang
A gang in opposition to the gang that owned the pizza shop
Was delivered to Albion instead
The pizza contained several doses of toad venom
Luckily for Albion the pizza cook got his recipe books mixed up
He did not sprinkle enough toad venom on the mozzarella to deliver death
Only enough to give the eater a high
Although Albion might not have died anyways
He was immortal
Having drunk breast milk from the lovely knockers of
the Syro-Phoenician goddess Atargatis back on VE-Day
May 8th 1945
Albion ate the pizza
and drank his bourbon
And soon he was off on a hallucinogenic trip
That would have made Samuel Taylor Coleridge green with envy
For there was no storytelling sailor with an albatross around his neck
Nor a Kubla Khan in Xanadu stately decreeing a pleasure dome
Rather this sight greeted his senses
Marianne de Lilith
I am Marianne de Lilith
said the sexy redheaded witch
Well, Marianne, said Albion,
I love the way you’re holding that broomstick.
Bats flew in the light of the full moon
Behind the dead desolate tree.
“This is but a vision of the mind,” Albion reflected
“As I don’t think the Farmer’s Almanac called for a full moon this evening.”
“The tree behind me died as a result of being watered with toad venom,”
Marianne explained.
“That is a shame,” Albion reflected as he threw his cigarette lighter at Marianne’s feet.
Albion crawled over to pick it up.
“I’m reminded of fishing season for some reason,” Albion remarked as he gazed up her stockings and her skirt.
A spiked stiletto high-heeled shoe crushed his hand.
“This never happened to John Candy when he made a splash with his loose change aboard that boat,” Albion grimaced with pain.
Albion soon found himself in Marianne’s shack.
He started whistling that song “What A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts”
as he gazed at the pair of knockers that weren’t hanging on Marianne’s door.
“I take it you still like being breast fed?” Marianne asked the private eye.
“I do,” Albion nodded, “I’m like Jerry Seinfeld in that respect.”
So Marianne breast fed him.
Breasts that were loaded with toad’s venom and not milk.
Albion went into cardiac arrest and was rushed to an LA hospital.
“Beware the breasts of Marianne de Lilth!” Calpurnia’s ghost warned as she strolled the corridors of the hospital emergency ward.
Her warning came a little too late for Carson Cody Albion private eye.
-A poem and vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Saturday June 13th
2020.
Dorian Gray and The Lakota Sioux Princess Tanaka
Dorian Gray and The Lakota Sioux Princess Tanaka
The Lakota Sioux Princess Tanaka was walking through the Dashwood Forrest Art Gallery in London.
It was a private visit as the Dashwood Forrest Art Gallery still hadn’t been granted permission by the UK government to publicly open during lockdown.
As Dashwood Forrest hurried back to his office because his office phone was ringing, the Lakota Sioux Princess Tanaka continued to walk down the halls of the gallery.
She entered a room marked PRIVATE as Forrest told her to treat the gallery as if it were her own home.
She noticed nothing in the room except for a pair of purple velvet curtains.
She opened the curtains and behind them were two portrait oil paintings.
One was a portrait of a young man.
And the other was a portrait of a teddy bear.
She recognized the young man in the portrait.
His name was Dorian Gray.
For the Lakota Sioux Princess Tanaka was an immortal.
In the summer of 1878, she had ridden a rare creature- a white buffalo- and as a result of that experience she became immortal.
That autumn, she had gone to London, England where she had lived ever since.
Also that autumn, she had met a dashing young man by the name of Dorian Gray.
After a whirlwind tour of sights and spots throughout England with Dorian, Tanaka thought that she was in love.
Dorian had invited her down to the seaside holiday spot of Brighton with him.
The Lakota Sioux Princess was sure that Dorian was going to ask her to marry him.
Dorian proposes marriage to the Lakota Sioux Princess Tanaka on the seashore at Brighton.
Tanaka said yes.
Later in Dorian’s hotel room, she went into his bedroom as he was out in the hall chatting to the bell boy.
She was shocked to discover a bunch of female human heads – all of them beautiful (for Dorian Gray did not have the exceptionally high IQ of a Pan Goatee) and perfectly preserved stored in jars of formaldehyde.
“Dorian!” She exclaimed when he walked back into the room, “What are these?”.
Dorian looked shocked and bit his lip, “Er… Um… You know how some people like collecting beautiful butterflies or beautiful seashells or beautiful autumn leaves or beautiful pressed flowers, I… um… like collecting heads of beautiful women.”
“But that’s sick!” Tanaka was shocked.
“But I’ve been invited to the Rothschild’s masked ball dinner party every year for the past 18 years!” Dorian protested, “How can you call someone who’s been invited to the Rothschild masked ball dinner party for that long sick?”.
Tanaka left slamming the door behind her.
“Does this mean the engagement is off?” Dorian called out from the balcony of his hotel room as she entered a horse carriage and the carriage drove away.
Dorian and Tanaka never saw one another again.
Later she heard the body of an unknown old man stabbed in the heart was found in Dorian Gray’s house in London.
Dorian himself was never seen again.
-A vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Tuesday May 19th
2020.
The Inspector and The Baker’s Daughter
The Inspector and The Baker’s Daughter
“Are you looking for something, Inspector?” The girl asked him.
A day began like any other for the Inspector
Yet no ordinary day
These are no ordinary times
Covid-19 pandemic in world.
2 days ago police in Beijing
arrested a professor
Chen Zhaozhi
Former professor at the Beijing University of Science and Technology
for calling Covid-19
The Chinese Communist Party Virus
But Beijing’s arrest did not concern the French police detective
What concerned the Paris police detective was a matter that concerned
The Paris Grand Orient Lodge
For British MP Renfield R. Renfield
had sent a confidential report today
to a French and European politician
The Kraken who called himself Napoleon VI
The leader of the French Aquarian Age Bonapartist Party
French President Macron had ordered surveillance of the Kraken’s
emails and text messages
And today Renfield had sent the Kraken
a confidential report
which was said to be from Five Eyes
The joint intelligence service of the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom
The report claimed that the Covid-19 virus
Was indeed a virus that had accidentally escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology
At an emergency meeting of the Grand Orient Lodge
Isis, Osiris and Horus
demanded to know
whether the Renfield report
was an actual copy of a Five Eyes
Intelligence Report
or whether the whole report was a
piece of Renfieldian disinformation
designed to prevent Emmanuel Macron
from ordering take out deliveries of Chinese food in Paris
A person that the Paris Police Inspector
thought might know
was Marmalade Montague
a baker and a man
from whom the Kraken bought
his croissant rolls and Chinese hot steamed buns
The Paris inspector himself used to buy his cinnamon buns from Marmalade Montague
Montague had recently been thrown out of his bakery
for lack of payment of rent
due to decline in business
during the Paris Covid-19 lockdown
However the inspector decided to visit Montague’s apartment
Perhaps the baker still lived there
As the building’s landlord had died
from the Covid-19 virus and his estate was still up in the air
The Inspector entered the apartment
As he passed by the kitchen, he noticed hot cinnamon buns lying on the counter
So the inspector stopped and ate one
He ended up eating all 6 dozen.
The Inspector received a text message on his smart phone
saying that Marmalade Montague kept poison in his bathroom medicine cabinet.
He went to check out the medicine cabinet
The bathroom door was still open
And that’s when the Inspector noticed Marmalade Montague’s lovely daughter Irene
sitting in a chair
in a corner of the living room
“Are you looking for something, Inspector?” The girl asked him.
“I was told your father kept poison in his medicine cabinet,” the inspector replied.
“He did but it’s no longer there,” Irene told him.
“Where is it?” The inspector asked.
“I added it to my dad’s recipe for his famous cinnamon buns that I left on the kitchen counter,” Irene answered.
The Inspector never did show up to that evening’s non-social distancing meeting of the Grand Orient Lodge.
A copy of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story Murders In The Rue Morgue was sent to the meeting
with a notation on the page
before the title page
that this was where the Inspector was to be found.
-A narrative poem
and vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Wednesday May 6th
2020.
Saint George and The Dragon
Saint George and The Dragon
There is an old tradition in the Greek Orthodox Church
that angels could fall until the 1st Coming of Christ
By Christ’s 1st Coming, the choices they made would then be their eternal decision and destination forever more.
Just as for mortal humans, they have until the moment of their own death or until Christ’s 2nd Coming (whatever comes first) to decide their eternal fate
And so even though Lucifer and a large portion of the angels fell in a Cosmic rebellion against the Creator of the Cosmos
Yet other angels fell afterwards
Until Christ’s 1st Coming.
And so it was that a Watcher angel called Semjaza
landed with 199 other Watcher angels
on Mount Hermon
on what is today the Israel-Lebanon-Syria border region
They saw that the daughters of men were fair
(Unlike today where a lot of the daughters of men are quite repulsively ugly and require a Pan Goatee to bump them off in order to restore Earth’s aesthetic balance)
And desired to mate with them
Semjaza got the other 199 to swear an oath upon Mount Hermon
That he wouldn’t be the only one to participate in this angelic sin of mating with human women
In addition to mating with mortal women
Semjaza also made out with the ancient Babylonian vampiress Lilith
And she gave birth to Azazel
Azazel son of Semjaza and Lilith
Became the leader of the Watchers and the Nephilim
And taught humanity both war and witchcraft
Later Azazel was bound hand and foot by the Archangel Raphael
And chained to the rough and jagged rocks of Dudael
which is east of Jerusalem
But before that happened Azazel along with other Watcher angels and Nephilim
were engaging in genetic experiments and tampering with DNA of different species
(As Christ said, “Behold as it was in the days of Noah, so it shall be at the Coming of the Son of Man”)
Azazel took a fossilized skull of an old T-Rex
The fossilized body, wings and legs of a pterodactyl
The poisonous venom of a Basilisk
And the ability to breathe fire like from the mouth of the Middle Kingdom Phoenix bird (or Chinese Phoenix)
Put them together
And created a hybrid monster of all those species
Azazel threw this monster into the sea waters off Lebanon
Where it mainly fed on marine life
By the 200s AD however the dragon (for that is what it resembled most in appearance) was sunning itself on the beach when a mortal human maiden approached
It ate her and developed a penchant for female human flesh
So people up and down the coasts of Lebanon
Were forced to give their young females to the dragon as a sacrifice
to prevent the dragon from running amuck
And breathing fire down on their towns and villages
A young woman called Sabra
then found herself chained to a rock
Awaiting the approach of the dragon
one fine day in the late 290s AD
A young Roman soldier called George
came along riding a white horse
And slew the Dragon with his sword
when it approached Sabra
George himself was later slain by the Roman Emperor Diocletian (a human that was very much in personality like a demonic dragon)
for refusing to renounce his Christian faith
The death of George occurred on April 23rd 303 AD
in Nicomedia
The capital of ancient Bithynia
Which later served as an interim capital
for Constantine the Great
while the city of Byzantium was being rebuilt and later became Constantinople.
-A poem and vampire novel chapter
written by Christopher
Thursday April 23rd
2020.
Return To Field of Dreams
Return To Field of Dreams
Marcus Shimbiro had a dream
When as an 8-year-old boy
he left his native Kenya
For the U.S.
He wanted to become a baseball player someday
He did excel at sports and particularly at baseball
In high school, he was hitting home runs
The same way he downed ice cream cones
with a vengeance
But then came that fateful day
He fell off his neighbour’s roof
While helping him paint it
And broke his arm and his leg
His arm and leg eventually healed of course
But he was not the same player ever again
He could no longer run
Or hit a home run.
Angry and bitter a few weeks before graduation
He borrowed a friend’s car and headed for Iowa
Why Iowa?
Because it was the home state of the Field of Dreams
That famous 1989 sports fantasy movie with Kevin Costner and James Earl Jones
About the Iowa corn farmer who plows part of his corn field
To build a baseball field
A field on which Shoeless Joe Jackson
And 7 other famous 1919 Chicago Black Sox players play
On that field in which Shoeless Joe and 7 others played
Was a player named Archibald “Moonlight” Graham
Who played one game for the New York Giants in 1905
but never had a turn at bat
Corn farmer Ray Kinsella (Costner)
and author/writer Terrence Mann (Jones) drive to Minnesota
Where they learn that Graham was a physician who had died years earlier
During a late night walk, Ray finds himself transported back to 1972
Where he encounters the elderly Graham (Burt Lancaster) who says he left baseball for a satisfying medical career
During the drive back to Iowa,
Ray picks up a young hitchhiker who introduces himself as Archie Graham
and says he wants to be a baseball player
Eventually, Graham gets the chance to play baseball with Shoeless Joe and other baseball greats in the Field of Dreams
But at a critical point in the game, Graham leaves the field of dreams
To administer emergency medical aid
Graham makes his choice
To be a doctor after all.
And now Marcus Shimbiro torn with rage at having his dreams dashed
Was trying to find this Field of Dreams of film-lore
To play baseball
Or at least find out what he was to do with his life
It was nighttime
and as he drove by a corn field
He was shocked to see baseball players playing ball in the field
He pulled in
And sat with the other spectators
And watched the greats of baseball play the game
Shoeless Joe Jackson, Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio and many others
He was shocked to discover Dr. Archibald Graham sitting next to him
offering him a hot dog and a coke
“Too bad about your fall, Marcus,” Graham remarked as he ate his own hot dog.
“It is,” Marcus frowned, “it’s not as if I could be a doctor like you not having baseball to fall back on.”
“Who says you can’t be a doctor?” Graham looked at him.
“I don’t have the marks or the aptitude for it,” Marcus answered.
“But you are good at observation and analysis and above all, perseverance, you may not get flying colours right away but with your observation and analysis and perseverance, you might spot something others have missed and that might make all the difference in the world someday,” Dr. Graham noted, “Ever hear the fable of the tortoise and the hare? The tortoise won the race in the end.”
“But that’s just a fable and a fairy tale,” Marcus pointed out, “That doesn’t happen in the real world. Most of the time, it’s the hare that wins and not the tortoise.”
“Most of the time that’s true, Marcus,” Graham agreed, “But often it’s at the most critical junctions in the world and in history that the tortoise wins the race. And at such times, the hare is usually not a foe but a friend. And it usually turns out to be one race where the hare was happy to see the tortoise win.”
Marcus looked at Graham.
He wasn’t quite sure what Graham meant by those words but somehow deep down inside himself, he felt they were important.
“So, do you think I should go into medicine?” Marcus asked.
“I do, Marcus, I do,” the elderly doctor patted him on the shoulder.
And seconds later, Dr. Graham, the players, the spectators and the baseball field were gone.
And all that was left…
… Was an empty corn field.
Marcus Shimbiro went into science and into medicine.
He didn’t always get the best marks.
But he studied hard and learned from his mistakes.
And developed a profound sense of analysis and insight.
He didn’t think he was good enough to treat patients but he went into research.
Using his memory and his insight and analysis in that line of work.
And then one day in the year 2020,
analyzing data and keeping track of things he and his numerous colleagues all over the world were doing,
Dr. Marcus Shimbiro discovered…
…. the vaccine for the Covid-19 Coronavirus.
We can all dream, can’t we?
And hope… is the knowledge that sometimes dreams can become reality.
-A narrative poem written by Christopher
Wednesday April 8th 2020.
Reblog of The Death of The March Hare: A Poem
A narrative poem I wrote 3 years ago today:
On her throne, Persephone the Queen of the Underworld did decree
that the March Hare had brought joy to far too many
and it was time that this valiant hare should die
and should be now before March time did fly
So on this last day of March 2017
as the Hare drank tea with a Heartly Queen
the Messenger of Death did drop Polonium-210
into the hare’s teacup at the stroke of Big Ben
The hare raised the tea to his lips
as Mad Hatter recalled his latest trips
up through and outside the Rabbit hole
when the poor hare turned as black as coal
“Remember to pay the phone bill” were the Hare’s last words before he died
as into the frying pan went the Heartly queen’s kipper being fried
The March Hare fell over quite dead
and the Heartly queen turned bright red
“I did not say…
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The Storyteller: Weaving Cloth and Spinning A Tale
The Storyteller: Weaving Cloth and Spinning A Tale
Outside the world spins on its axis
As she spins cloth in actual praxis
In her mind she spins tales
like mermaid meeting whales
Fairies and butterflies sit on shelves
While her goldfish bowl swims with elves
Harlequin dolls on floors watch the cloth being weaved
As magic falls seamlessly out of her sleeve
For her mind is full of tales never told
of magical creatures and maidens bold
In a land she imagines where love ne’er grows old
Where knights shine and evil giants fold
Her old phonograph plays songs of yesteryear
Where sometimes those lyric memories can bring forth a tear
Her window on the world becomes a magic mirror
Where dark things are far but hope is nearer
Outside ships may burn and conquering dirigibles fly
While she entertains her fairy
audience with sweet lullaby
Sometimes in dark times, one has to stay home
But for a mind such as hers, she has a whole world to roam
-A poem written by Christopher
Thursday March 19th 2020
