Garden Justice

 Spiders crawl.

Their sprawling limbs deftly spinning

false narratives into unrecognisable realities.

Nets of untruths bind and gag

honest observations.

Sticky strong silk shrouds 

instead of scold’s bridles

adorn whistleblowers.

No stocks for public punishment,

these juicy martyrs will be silently sucked dry. 

Eventually the weight of the larder will shred that web

and the arachnids of sophistry 

will be swallowed by the hooded crows of hubris.

Shrinkflation

 It’s heady times we’re living in!

Full pelt, high tilt, heading for oblivion,

watching the numbers on labels go up and 

pounds in pockets go down.

See the same all over town;

Three pints and a game of pool is now

One pint nursed over an evening.

Only there ‘cause it’s cheaper than the heating.

Choice between bus fare and eating.

Fancy portmanteaus to hide reality of meaning.

They call it Shrinkflation.

I call it profit-motivated, cronyist complicity in mass starvation.

Theirs is catchier.

 Whatever.

Have you eaten jelly babies recently?

When I opened my packet last night, 

The fright! 

The horror! The drama! The scene!

Half the kids had been kidnapped! 

I reached for my phone,

I had to call the police!

But then I remembered - they’d already know.

It’s been happening for decades at least.

We can talk about Freddos, too,

or car parts, or diesel, or booze

but my first glimpse of this dastardly practice

was mightily unsavoury -

you’ll have to forgive me for this.

How do I put this without getting banned?

Do you know what an eight of an ounce is in grams?

It’s 3 and a bit.

An eighth of an ounce once cost twenty quid!

And pound for pound we’re weaker than ever,

Tenuously taking steps while the tensions tighten in our tethers.

More debt, more struggle, less hope,

no matter how you rearrange it.

Recognising failures in the system doesn’t change it.

Standing idly by, 

blithely buying into blindfolds

blinged beyond belief

Offering ornamental oblivious relief 

from all the 

actions and inactions and reactions

and rot.

What’s it all for anyway?

We are sinking in the mire of our own making.

Taking too long to make choices,

fry replaced the song in our voices

long ago. It’s starting to show.

The foundations of civil edifice begin to splinter.

Yet to arrive are the fuel privations in the midst of bitterest Winter.

Still Summer,

still sunshine and clammy.

No bees, no insect bites from midges this year.

Just pollen dusted lashes and cheeks streaked with allergic tears.

Instability of emotion, 

plankton massacres in oceans,

death cult levels of devotion

to illogical half baked notions

and the over saturation of fear.

One in 6 adults here are on medicines for depression. 

When will we admit there’s nothing wrong with us,

but this path is cobblers

and we’ve broken heels.

It’s time to fix it. 

Here’s the deal. 

Leave the drama to the actors.

Consider the possibility of favourable factors.

Candles give both warmth and light.

Emulate them. Stop this simulation 

of projected self and merely

hold your own.

Solidify you source of ignition,

find truth lies in your intuition.

Be forthright,

Try, try, try, try again.

Offer help to strangers and friends.

We’re going to need it.

Witness

I am swallowed by my bitterness

and I swallow it

in this fractal frame of failed relationships.

Cynicism soothes my wounded seat on shelf.

I can’t stand going out.

I’d rather sit here by myself.

I’m past all the politics,

all the pitifully petty pecks of poison.

I’ve destroyed some neural pathways -

traumatic mistakes in my past days -

I’m taking small steps to start to fix them.

Small steps are fine, but small talk is a human affliction.

Fill the air with comforting fiction:

soulless banality hosed down and repeated as wisdom

by those who love to speak but have never learned to listen;

giving advice even they don’t believe in.

It’s deceiving

telling everyone you’re

Fine

all the time. It’s not

Honest.

Holding back - substitution of feelings in place of facts.

Illogical reasoning misleads and distracts.

Choreographed outward expression to avoid exposing inner lack

of belonging.

This wrongling has always felt that gap.

When I started reading Phillip K Dick

I felt seen. Something in me clicked and it all made sense.

Let’s just say, for argument’s,

that you understand

how it feels to live life as a grain of sand.

Watch unreactive distracted citizenry

wail and gnash and wring their hands;

apathetically prophetic taking knees 

instead of making stands.

Trembling. Waiting for breath.

And when it comes, the hurricane howl ignites the spite that underlies society.

Sparks to the skies, and hang sobriety!

Times of extremes clouding clarity of conviction.

If we’re all victims, 

Then surely we’re all, too, perpetrators.

Ears filled with these half-baked statements of journalistic tinnitus

pushing the same old them-and-us.

Propaganda pervasive; twas ever thus.

Psychological soundbites and deep cuts.

And as above, so below. 

On a personal level, it’s starting to show.

Look among you! Do you even know

how many are masking? How many know?

For all of the feeling that’s public displayed

how little is shown when the mind’s whirr is stayed?

This adrenaline engine is seemingly binary:

tectonic plate movement rate

or warp times infinity.

Where is the nuance? Where the gradations?

Where are the plateaus and smooth undulations?

Youth speaks in infinites, we speak in finalities.

Counting up daily accounts 

of fatalities.

Powerless but to bear witness 

to all of it.

Self-referential #6

 I am so sick of all of it.

The corruption,  the lies, the statistics. 

I once was able to warn allegorically 

but now I state baldly, in fact; categorically 

That dystopian nightmare has crossed to our waking.

We're inside a hellscape of our own creation.

Cassandra I, scribed. The Mistress of Mince.

High on a hill girt by oceans of ink.

Foretelling it all in bouquets of verse

presented with the flourish of the under-rehearsed.

For now the flourishes will wait.

I'm overwhelmed and overweight 

and spending all my energy 

on the one who means the most to me. 

Hermitage and happiness go hand in hand. 

Watch my tail feather shake as I stick my ostrich head in the ground

It's more important to make memories.

Too late to warn of the future. 

Present

We are here and now
but how
to get out of this mess
is the question.

Grotesquely gratefully undertaken guilt
in the lands that colonialism built.
Damocles democracy up to the hilt.
Kamikazi kakistocracy cashing in on milk long spilt.
Curdled cultures spreading spores.
Survival instinct the strongest force
on decreasingly distant shores
while we try to define "reliable source".
Fake news and State news and Corporate news, too;
they're all propaganda
an underhand way to push one agenda
it's demonstrably true.
We've gone from mock outrage, to sincere apathy, to militant bickering.
It's a revolting rhapsody
of society's disunification and collapse.

Here we are, and now.
Ploughing on,
disregarding rippling rumbles
as grumbling gods.

Tornadoes, volcanoes; hurricaine brutality;
gargantuan gyres and shifts of polarity.
Terra Firma trembles to Terra Fragility.
Rewarding ruination dressed as destructive capability.
Vulgar vultures, wagers of war
licking their lips while weapons stocks soar
and waste water rattles shake plates to the core
and toothless judiciary makes jokes of the law.
Free speech and Hate speech and Corporate speech too;
they're sophisticated-
in the Platonic sense-
manipulated.
None of it's true.
We've gone from communication, to control,
to Twitterati creedence gifts.
It's left a giant hole
where debate should be.
We've let civilisation lapse.

Are we here? And now?
Surround yourself with light
and fight
the frequencies of dischord.
Use courtesy. Firstly remember compassion
before embarking on any rash action.
Remember that romance is not being rationed
and amplifiers elevate the maxim of attraction.
Guttural grunts of headline hacks.
Persistant pop ups of click bait claptrap.
Love's language languishes solely through lack
of being spoken. Take speech back.
Home life and Work life and Corporate life, too.
They're all characters-
in facets of sense-
they're all you.
We went from idealist, to masochist,
to embracing practicality
and in the midst lost liberty.
We built our own traps.
Here
and Now
are we.

Romero

Romero was a romantic.

Voluntary Zombification

wasn’t included in his epic.

Nor was informational monetisation .

We are the mumbling, stumbling masses.

We’re the brain dead, GM fed, disposable classes.

Deafened by the rumbling malice used to reassure us.

It’s the somnambulists’ sonorous psalm-like chorus:

It’s their fault – COMPLY

It’s their fault – OBEY

It’s their fault – ACCEPT

Above us holographic promises projected

onto roiling clouds of discontent

seem concrete.

Below, the mire sucks to ankles, feet

rotting in perpetual effluent, deep

and cloying as corruption is cheap.

Malaise molests our mucous membranes,

remaining even after exhaling this weighty air.

With fuzzy focus, our brows furrowed

we attempt to see clearly in ever-long shadows:

the projections.

Mirages of meaning

heinously inspiring  false hope

through eye burning vapours  

and looking glass lies.

Fingers outstretched we strive

to grasp

then gasp

surprised

when hands pass

through

banisters on stairs

that were never really there

at all.

We fall

for this repeatedly,

our gullibility

rivaled only by the virility

of our envy.

Gaudy baubles.

Tawdry tell-alls.

Scandals based on media morals.

Distract, deny

debase, decry,

berate, then buy

into this

mis-in-

formation.

Visions of similar vexatious veracity

we are force-fed emphatically

until this aspirational claptrap

is snapped up

by strapped up

facsimiles of fashionable pretence.

(In their defence,

all face paint is war paint

and all clothing is fancy dress.)

And yes, I too

am subsumed

by this murky world.

Cursing at cloud forms

coughing at coarse fumes

finding comfort in costume.

Is this

security?

The Mafia style Protectorate

we live under with Protocol Three?

The perverted version of protection

offered by the Panopticon

promotes

extreme proposals

perfect

for pitting us

one on one

and on and on

we go ‘til we turn on

ourselves.

Belly-flames long gone cold,

we’re dejected, cut price, wholly sold.

Raised on debt and dreams of gold,

forget ever owning anything.

Political correctness causes steroid- thin skins

to equal the pages of the books we binned

and burnt

never having learnt

to critically think

our way out

of the mess we’re in.

Overused superlative responses

out-stretch soaked and underrated nuances

to polarization purpose.

Once we are accustomed to unreason at this rate

 we lose our slippy grip on the power of debate.

Reduced to frothing opinions,

forthright remonstrations

forceful demonstrations

and farcical deliberations

over arbitrary -isms and -ists.

“No I’m sorry, you must choose from this list

of things we have determined are suitable for you.”

When the decision is between

 being thrown to the hounds,

or buried under the ground,

still breathing

it’s no wonder folk are

keeping their heads down,

silencing dissenting sounds,

numbing their sense of feeling.

With enough bodies under the mire

the heap might just be high enough

to lift us up beyond this stuff.

That’s the logic, right?

Except that fetid foundations

build putrid palaces

and subsidence is simply

impossible to fight.

Sooner or later we are all sucked under,

fucked over

by a state that places emphasis

on cronyism and nepotists.

What makes you think you can win?

It’s not a case of sink or swim.

We need to invert the way we think

to even have a chance.

They aren’t world leaders,

they are world servants

And the sooner we remind them

the sooner we end this macabre dance.

Reality TV

Let's have a little chat about reality TV.
Just whose are these realities they're choosing us to see?
To mock and martyr, revile and revere,
Emotion's perspective tweaked and turned to play on our fears.
We use these worlds to bury ourselves in things we know not to be true
because none of us can face the real reality show - The News.
Mountain-top mosquito-people, drinking blood to survive.
And we've started counting instead, how many Palestinians are left alive?
There are state sponsored murders based on Kinsey Scale scores
and of institutionalised putrefaction we've never known more.
We waste our votes on X Factor and don't register to vote.
We don't know our rights but do know theme tunes, off by rote.
They're closing the borders! Too Early! Too Late!
                  The timing is quite immaterial.
They're not doing it to avoid Ebola's fate.
                  It's the absolute opposite of ethereal.
By maintaining money in short supply and feeding us mental dripping,
Further from human and conscious and pure we are irretrievably slipping.
Unless we change our habits we are doomed to these repeats
of funerals and far-off wars and fighting in the streets.
Just whose are those realities they're choosing us to see?
Take another look at your reality TV.

Call To Arms

Every day I read the news with growing trepidation.

It’s regression on a massive scale. The end of civilisation.

We’re not punishing those that caused this mess with lies, with greed, with ego.

But blaming folk who’ve nothing done and warring with nations we don’t know.

What year is this? Who’s in control? Where is Lady Justice?

She’s bound and gagged in a divan bed. Ransomed for the fame of her captress.

Of equal weight (or so we’re told) to celebrities, diets and twerking.

The blood on her sword is only her own so clearly, this system’s not working.

The children that need us the most,

Tragically fall through the ‘net

And children are taken when good parents seek help and hysterical healthcare objects.

Open your eyes and ignore the damned press! They have profits to make, don’t you see?

Horrors that happen go unreported and affect us – that’s you - and it’s me.

I do not believe it is really so hard to lay aside neighbourly spite

And just keep an eye out, get involved and speak up if something just doesn’t seem right.

Notice the pensioned! They are people too and their stories are going untold.

As we focus on disposable incomes of youth and deny our own growing old.

I don’t have the answers. I’m not the Messiah (or even a naughty boy),

I am just one person, sick of the nonsense and sick of acting coy.

I’m not asking for money, or a signed petition, or change in far flung lands.

I’m saying your community needs you before it ends up in God-knows-whose hands.

Get involved. Take an interest. Speak up! Go out!

Disenfranchisement is dead.

Earnestness is the future!

And without it?

Total extinction instead.

Pig Ignorant

Once upon a Summertime there lived a golden prince

In a palace built from beans that grew from kitchen sinks.

He went outside when midday came and in the midday sun,

For he knew nothing of the tales of dogs nor Englishmen.

He lived to sip his smoke divine upon a throne of stars

And fed his harem apple wine but kept their souls in jars.

This winsome whimsical young Prince ruled with a fist of floss,

With his subjects it was rare if he was ever cross.

And while this prince felt so well loved, he had a fatal flaw;

His face and form were perfect but he was a perfect bore

And all across his kingdom as far the eye could see

Existed none honest or curt with whom he could take tea.

For the prince preferred such topics as his hair, his skin, his bones

And ignored the joys that could be found in ancient dusty tomes.

Not for him were stories, myths or poetry,

Nor were facts, heroic deeds or relativity.

He turned away the callers who tried to feed his mind

But kept the ones obsequious and two faced and unkind.

He never seemed to realise that all his friends were foes

But trusted them implicitly – naivety I suppose.

The ignorant prince was much abused by those reputed wise,

Invisible their evil deeds, before his open eyes.

And then one night The Lady came, (as she is wont to do,

She is never on the guest list of the most discourteous fools),

Arriving lone entombed in night

She was sodden, foreign sight

She carried a world in a ring on her hand, enigma in her eyes

Nary a smile nor giggle nor grin, just th’illegible lines of the wise.

When the courtiers brought her in they all seemed quite unwell,

Mesmerised and stupefied they were under some kind of a spell.

The Prince was most surprised at this; his footmen knew the rules;

His other guests had written in, to say they liked his shoes.

“This isn’t fair, this isn’t right, you can’t just waltz in here,

And interrupt the grave debate of ‘Which is my better ear?’”

The Lady did not answer him but gazed from ‘neath her hood,

She radiated something that was neither bad nor good,

The first plumes of her power had tickled her nose; the Prince tried a different tack

“We will welcome you madam, we’ve plenty to share. Is there something you need that you lack?”

The Lady just stood there, rain dripped from her wrists

As in smouldering silence she dared to persist.

The Prince was intrigued now, his charm on high beam,

This Lady was like no one else that he’d seen.

He clapped his hands, “Assist our guest! I will not have it said

The someone in my house was cold and wet and underfed!”

The courtiers stepped forth as one to help remove her cloak

But as she drew it from her face out billowed turquoise smoke.

She raised her hands entrancing all, “Enough of gentile games!

I’ve come here on a mission. I have far nobler aims!”

The Prince submitted to her power

(It was by far his humblest hour)

The courtiers couldn’t help but cower

The ladies were inspired.

The Lady’s eyes in violet glowed

And all at once Prince was bestowed

With information overload;

Too much at once acquired

Light beamed from the Prince’s agape skyward mouth,

Lightning bolts shot from his ears

As all in one moment he experienced facts

And the wisdom one gains over years.

It filled him with horror, with hope and with fright

It made his a cynic, a poet, a knight.

The Lady was shining, had narrowed her eyes

Had forgotten all of her flimsy disguise

The mutually breathless admirers spectated, no one was stopping for wine.

They knew what they witnessed would carry them years, on this they could endlessly dine.

The lightning bolts flickered and faded to rain

The Prince closed his mouth, his composure regained

And once more the Lady controlled his attention

Eyeing him sagely, He was under inspection.

Said she;

“Weary Prince I bestow thee

With a somewhat questionable gift

I do hope it will find pleasure from thee,

But if not, let it cause not a rift

For this is an offer, you might not accept

And all I have given you yet is the concept.

The problem you see, is it’s like a tattoo,

And therefore once done is the devil to undo.

I know that for some this would just tantalise

I’d be run over by them in their rush to subscribe

But for you, feckless prince, it may be the other

You’d amble off home, say, ‘It’s too much like bother”

And what if you changed your mind half way through?

What if you realised it’s just not for you?

This taster you’ve had will fade when you sleep

But if you want more you will have it for keeps”

The courtiers exchanged some looks, most unprofessionally,

They realised their lives could swerve away from milk and honey.

The vizier removed his hat and squeegeed off his head.

The silken cloche was soaked in sweat, his eyes were filled with dread

The ladies’ fans were all aflutter – was this the longed-for day?

To stop feigning stupidity and the end of all things fey?

Prince raised one hand in punctuation

“Dear Lady you fill me with much consternation

You have given me the fruity brambly bit,

But before I reached cedar you forced me to spit

And now you inform me of your heavy game

A choice between different or more of the same,

Between fear and vanity, humility and bliss,

Creed and hedonism and so forth like this.

I require contemplation, a pool to reflect

Without others’ input to urge or reject

And so we will gather here one hour hence

And I shall dismount from this perilous fence.”

He nodded quite stiffly and smiled with a grim

Little glint in his eye and a granite hard chin.

No more just the narcissist, so fauxly coy

No more just the whimsical “why not?” boy.

This was now a man with courage, strength and gravity

But heavy shoulders burdened with responsibility.

The next 60 minutes performed, as they must

With Time’s cruellest trick and they stretched into dust.

The chairs in the hall disarrayed to a skelter

As the guests hurried off to the smoking shelter.

The Lady said nothing but sat on the floor

Surrounded by trifle, potatoes and more:

Platters of sweetmeats and slices of tongue

Some with delicate perfume and some with true pong.

All went untouched as the Lady just waited

For she had a hunger that could not be sated

By titbits or tasters or flavours galore.

Her eyes were now glowing the purest azure

She shuddered and shimmered, then froze statuesque.

The Vizier fancied himself basilisk

Then slumped rather glumly to consider his fate

And whether it was wise for him to await

The Prince’s decision. If Princey awoke

To the fact that His leadership was a joke

The first thing He’d say would be “Off with your head!”

Quite right after all of the lies He’d been fed.

With this echo in mind the Vizier resolved

To empty the treasure pod of all of its gold

Before the Princely announcement was made.

That way his streaky old bacon he’d save.

He slithered away inside a breath

A mucilaginous sweat trail was all that he left.

Oblivious he to Her observation,

She would find time to reward this shrewd auto-salvation.

With five minutes left the crowd reassembled,

Refilled their glasses, excitedly trembled

Their singular focus was a scarlet curtain

Behind which their future was being made certain.

The courtiers, the ladies, the laymen all gasped

As their Prince re-emerged seeming breathing his last

His golden hair ashen, his skin was the same

He huffled and shunched his once elegant frame

And finding his throne gripped its arms for support

A little bit more than for his age he ought.

Called the Lady most firmly, “Well then, we’re all waiting.

What did you learn from your deep cogitating?

Have you made a decision? If not flip a coin,

I have other appointments and gifts to deploy.”

The Prince stroked the space where his beard should be

And let loose a sigh to the power of three.

“Officious visitor, what have you done?

You have made me aware of my own bumbledom.

Now self-aware sociopath, unfulfilled hero

Without a believable stroke of the ego.

And my court! Such sycophants! Self serving subjects!

Not one word of truth or kindness or respect.

How did this happen? And yet, this I know.

Apolaustic life. Avoidance of woe.

Omphaloskepsis and self aggrandising

Were pastimes delightful and quite hypnotising.

My blinkers of nescience now ripped from my face

And the bright lights of truth burn my eyes in their place.

Do none of you care what the future will be?

Or do you delight in epicaricacy?

Flippertigibbets advice I have heeded

But responsible leadership was what was needed.

This gift of enlightenment is wrongly named

For it burdens my soul and my conscience with shame.

A mockery of this land’s honour and grace

Kakistocracy with it my deeds did replace.

How can I ever recover from this?

Will I ever again experience bliss?

Ever consumed by improvement’s endeavour,

So many poisonous drip-feeds to sever.”

The Lady now tutted and tossed back her hair:

Pretty interruption with much practised flair:

“Come come, now! Indulgence of speeches aside

Have you chosen knowledge or the boetian side?”

“I was coming to that, will you please have some patience?

I need to explain my hour long machinations.

Now where was I? Oh yes. It’s coming back now.

The question of what I would give up and how.

To know what I was and the work it will take

To restore some dignity, corruption to break

Is most overwhelming and a life long campaign.

From parties and pleasure I’d have to refrain.

Get my hands dirty, permit age’s wrinkles

To sully this face. Tired eyes do not twinkle.

I would have to confront and debate and condemn

Set an example, be a man amongst men.

I would lose all my gusto and vivacity

With no time for laughing or cakes and cream tea.

I wouldn’t have people to tell me I’m gorgeous

Or be woken by the “We Love You” chorus.

No hours ruminating on trousers or shoes

At board games I might even once or twice lose.

And replacing these joys, what‘s the exchange?

Effortful living and stress induced mange.

I would miss all the costumes and much of the mirth

I ask you; is knowledge truly of this worth?”

“Answering me is your deep-set conceit

You‘re an unchanged poltroon, Princey my sweet.”

Her eyes were glittering, but the Prince took no notice,

So absorbed was he in atrabilious morosis.

“My answer is this: take it all away.

Nay. I say. Nay - I say. Once again, nay!

I can’t face dealing with each cockalorum

Or policy debates or learning decorum.

I don’t want to know about poverty or pain,

I would prefer each day of my life was the same;

A sweet carousel of earthly pleasures,

Time consumed with chores of leisure.

I fail my people for my people failed me.

If this is so bad, install democracy!

Puppet Prince I was and choose to always be.

This narcissistic life is warm. Wisdom is lonely.

I hope you understand, my dears. I hope you do not mind.

I just want to forget all this and return to being blind.

Lady, your instructions included nepenthe sleep.

This is my one salvation and so, to it I weep.”

He turned away, eyes to the floor

The Lady grinned most undemure

She reached her feet, he reached the door

No subject said one word.

Crackling light from fingertips,

Vowelless sound from bloodless lips,

The Prince was lifted from the hips

Etiquette seemed absurd.

A cloud of violet shimmering lights

Surrounded the gyrating Prince in the heights

The Lady seemed larger and slightly demonic

The ladies had run out of gin for their tonic.

This bringer of wisdom cackled and turned

Each one of the laymen her eyes rightly burned.

Her voice had changed from reasonable to ringing with disdain

“Now face what you have made, you fools, and what you must maintain.

For reign he must and in the manner that you all have chosen,

In a form befitting character this choice has outright proven

And now you shall receive the present that you all deserve:

This is my gift to your kingdom, perfidious herd.”

The sleeping prince amongst the clouds let out a little sigh

As ghostly fingers played on him and measured up his size

His outline seemed to stretch and twist, his tresses all fell out

His clothes dissolved, his achingly beautiful face became a snout

His arms foreshortened, legs the same and fingers now hooves cloven.

The court were certain that for a Prince this form was unbehoven.

Then with a little popping sound denoting the final detail

His new figure was completed with a tufted curly tail.

Like Rodda’s swine force 10 he soared - a most majestic sight.

Missing only earthbound string he could be a Flyodian kite.

Smiling now, his eyes awake he drifted slowly floorward.

And landing with a little grunt his first steps seemed quite awkward.

After two or three missteps he seemed to find his trotters

And spontaneous applause spilled from the half closed kitchen shutters.

The Lady took a half step back to assess her handiwork

It seemed to be acceptable - she wore a little smirk.

“He will not know how things have changed, or of the choice he made.

He still thinks he is human. You will uphold this sweet charade.

When you had a choice you chose the path unscrupulous

To set a good example this imbalance I redress.

The country now will worship him, this Prince in Piggyform

And he will live 100 years. Your duty is foresworn.

All this world will know of you and all of you they’ll mock.

With all the disrespect you’ve shown this shouldn’t be a shock.

My mission done, I’m leaving you to deal with your new lives.

Killing me will do no good, so put away your knives.

Oh yes, there was one more little thing…”

She opened her mouth as if to sing

But instead loudly vomited a purple thing.

It was a slimy toad.

She laid it on the Prince’s back

The courtiers spied its tiny silk hat

“and that’ the Lady said, “is that.

It’s time to hit the road.”