[llamabeast]

This post is spectacularly off-topic. However, I just wrote pretty much my first ever poem, and I'm quite pleased with it, so I thought I'd stick it here.

My friend Laila just got back from our trip to Edinburgh (we were in an improvised comedy show together), to find that all of her stuff, which was stored in the university cellars, was buried under other people's boxes. So I thought I'd write a poem about it, and it ended up much longer than expected! I had Dr Seuss in mind when I was writing it, so the style is, I guess, meant to be reminiscent of his.

--

The trousers and towels and sweaters and sockses
Of young Laila Tims were buried in boxes
"Oh fee!", she cried, "Oh fee and oh fie!
"Oh why are these boxes piled so high?"

But Laila was smart, as soon we shall see,
She said "This shall not get the better of me!"
So she thought and she thunk, and she mulled and she pondered;
She walked as she thought and she thunk as she wandered
And suddenly Laila came up with a plan:
"I need only go to the animal man!"

So to Alex's Shop of Wonderful Creatures
Stocking myriad beasts, with countless strange features
Laila Tims travelled, by foot and by bike
(for to walk the whole way would have been quite a hike).
And when she returned she bore creatures of merit:
In each of her hands she carried a ferret.

Now the ferrets were smart and the ferrets were quick
The ferrets could dance and their movements were slick
The ferrets knew German and Russian and Basque
If you wanted translations you just had to ask;
The ferrets knew Welsh and they knew Ancient Greek
(Though in place of the etas the ferrets would squeak).

Leila talked to the ferrets, and she asked them with care
"Could you rescue my things from that pile over there?
"My skirts look like this and my blouses like that
"My trousers are few but they're next to my hat
"My travelling clothes are whiter than white
"But if you make pawprints they'll still be alright."

So the ferrets went in and the ferrets came out
Those ferrets of Laila's did not hang about!
They brought out her t-shirts, her books and her booze
They brought our her trousers and blouses and shoes
And finally, piled up there on the floor
Were all Leila's things, collected by paw.

But one problem remained to mar this success:
The pile was still in a terrible mess!
And so the ferrets returned to their task
She did not even need to ask
Her skirts in a wardrobe, her socks in a drawer
They hung up her hat on a hook by the door.

Then at length and at last, when all was done,
They decided it was time for fun.
So Laila sang and the ferrets danced,
Laila poured gin, and the ferrets pranced.
The ferrets had never had gin before
They loved it so much that they drank more and more!
And friend let me say, should you feel down or iffy,
The world's finest thing is a ferret that's squiffy.

Still, when the dawn came, they grew tired in the head
And they all went upstairs to her ferret-made bed.
There Leila slept, in her room fresh and neat
And the ferrets curled up, and slept by her feet.