sheldrake

The Tale of the Gold Eyeball Cup Man

There once was a man
who lived in a cup.
His legs were all yellow,
his down was his up.

His eyeballs were stippled
with orange and gold.
His story is fearful,
and yet must be told.

There came a wild day
upon a wild moor
when elephant people
were feeding the poor,

and Gold Eyeball Cup Man
was having his lunch
of blue string and onions,
done up in a bunch,

when suddenly, oddly,
at twenty past three,
his tooth-pegs exploded
and, terrified, he

ran off to his mother's
who lived in Brazil,
but took a wrong turning,
got lost in Mill Hill.

Oh what will become
of Gold Eyeball Man?
His cup runneth over,
but... so does his nan.

Dame Mother Cup,
a doting old dear,
or so say the foolish,
unwilling to hear

the deeds of that crone,
so horrid to tell,
how she pillaged and punctured,
and poisoned a well.

She drove an old Volvo,
with spikes on the wheels,
she had thorns on her thumbs,
she had spurs on her heels.

One day she went driving
from Barnet to Spode*,
by way of the Ridgeway,
that magical road.

Mother Cup didn't care,
if she went the wrong way,
she cared only for china,
and murder, and may-

hem, rattled along
in her rusty estate,
crashing through gardens
and knocking down gates.

And then -- oh disaster!
Cruel day! OMG!
She met her poor grandson
And he meeted she.

His teeth still exploding
all over his head,
met her craziness, meaning
they're both of them dead.

The Volvo a fireball,
a terrible shame,
for an innocent Cup Man
and a criminal dame.

Today a memorial
graces that spot --
A fine china teacup
with a spiked-up teapot.

THE END


* I am aware that Spode is not in itself a location; I refer to the Spode ceramics factory in Stoke-on-Trent