The Story of the Lonely Comma - Nonsense Poems and Foolish Rhymes

The Story of the Lonely Comma

There once was a story

It was as boring as sin

And no-one would read it

So it was consigned to the bin

At this sad point

The tale would end

But for an industrious comma

With an image to defend

You see, the comma was lonely

It had spent all its time

In the middle of sentences

Despite a life without crime

It was used willy nilly

As a pause for thought

And there in the dust bin

It was overwrought

It finally managed

To escape from the shredder

And get onto a desk

Which wasn’t much better

From there it wandered

Like a nomad of prose

And discovered the library

Where its spirits rose

For there it found

In the thousands of books

Millions of commas

Coming out for a look

The comma’s new friends

Were a sight for sore eyes

But our hero set his sights

On a much greater prize

He gamboled to a book

A dictionary, it asserted

And swung upside down

Where he remained, inverted Pierre The Slug A million years back, In a land far from here, There lived a small slug, His name was Pierre Pierre and his fold, They were happy enough, Until the sea rose And the salt made them cough. So they started slugging To a cave on the hill But the sea kept on coming And Pierre, he fell ill His dear wife Florence, A lady of guile Took matters in hand And they left, single file For so many years They moved on in this way And Pierre and his family Were scared every day But one morning he saw With a grin of delight The sea had gone down During the night So the family went back To their home down the hill Where they stayed evermore I think their there, still. God and the Marrow of Two Minds It is common knowledge That the building of Earth Took seven days That was all it was worth Because on the eighth day God had a plan A vegetable patch With which to feed man He started with sprouts And then moved to prunes And for the potatoes He planted Neptune There were parsnips on Mars, And carrots on Pluto And after a while He had nowhere to go Next was the radish, And at the end of the day He extended the garden To the Milky Way He planted and sowed And they thrived, it was said But there were always more veg That needed a bed After many more planets And stars had been sowed God thought that mankind May get veg overload But there was one last seed That came with a curse It was the Marrow of two minds It needed a universe For the marrow, you see Could go either way Either good or bad Dependant on the day God took his chances, and planted the seed And it ripened on Tuesday And then did a good deed It created a flower Which made God smile And then grew more Which it did for a while

God collected his harvest As best as he could And the marrow was served Which shows all veggies are good Bat Mussel and Gherkin Some heroes are super And some are incredible Some are crustaceans And a few of them edible The latter two kinds Are the stars of this tale Bat Mussel and Gherkin Their motto:- “Foods don’t fail” They fought against baddies No fear, without doubt And would have fought more Had Bat Mussel not dried out On an average day (and of these there were little) The baddies were in fear Of a clam and a pickle They flew around town In a car made from cheese And would clamp down on injustice With assurance and ease But one telling day They were seized by a crook He wanted them gone And had a dinner to cook So our fearless heroes Were trapped and in fear One in a jar And one, marinière Suffice to say, Help was at hand The crook served his guests A chateaubriand So to this day In a far flung country Bat Mussel and Gherkin Fight crime, from a pantry The Hair Revolution Haircuts are normal Or so it was thought ‘Til the hair revolution Where battles were fought It makes absolute sense If you think of it now That cutting off heads May have started a row Because hairs are like people They like things to be normal So when they kicked off It was ordered and formal Like clockwork they started Ejecting with glee From middle aged men To be replaced with new weaves They created an army Their plan was long term A battalion of strands Their job - temp to perm As baldness crept in Men all said the same “We’ve nothing to fear (We’ve got Regain)” But the hairs were insistent And made counter attacks Like mass electrolysis And bikini wax The battle raged on And exists to this day With hair joining the comrades Like a latter day Ché Who knows where it stops? Can humans defend From baldness and shedding? There lies the split end The Ogre that couldn’t swim A long while back A man said to me “There once was an ogre Who lived in a tree” That ogre was Bruce And his chances were thin He was surrounded by water And he couldn’t swim His planet had flooded Many years prior As ice caps had melted And he was left in this mire So Bruce had been perched For many a year Eating flies, bugs an leaves And living in fear For the water was rising It did every day And with no swimming coach present Bruce started to pray He begged for an answer All day and all night He gnashed and he gnawed At his terminal plight But Bruce was a fighter An Ogre in motion He did a back flip And dove into the ocean He thrashed and he battled And still couldn’t breach Bruce all but gave up ‘Til he spotted a beach With his final effort Bruce got out of the sea He took his last breath And became a palm tree The olive and the ice cube In a cocktail bar Amongst the spirits and glasses Lived an olive called Pip And an ice cube called Francis A perilous life Was lived in that bar But a love affair blossomed It was lust from afar In these unlikely surroundings At the back of the bar There was an ice bucket And some olives, in a jar They lived in great fear Of being plucked from their homes Pip with a stick, And Francis, with tongs In this existence Of terror and trauma Our lovers found solace Hiding out in a corner They talked through the night Despite a great din That came from the bar They found themselves in But the dreaded day came They were in for a shock When the bar man was asked For a Scotch on the rocks Francis shivered with horror And Pip nearly swooned As the bar man grabbed Francis Leaving Pip sadly marooned Francis melted to nothing He had no chance to flee And soon Pip had gone, too To be drowned in Martini Of the uncompromising bad luck of the frog The frog lived a good life In his pond by the river In summer he basked And in winter he shivered For many a year He chirped and he croaked And the other pond dwellers Said he was a good bloke But the frog had an issue It was confirmed by the duck Despite his good will He had terrible luck He lost frog spawn at cards And his lily at dice And when he played poker He got bluffed by the mice He had no luck in love And that was his downfall He was as ugly as sin And had no-one to call But one day by the pond When the frog was depressed A princess sat down And she was impressed She fancied the frog Despite his bad fortune So she picked him up And the frog nearly swooned She kissed him head on And try as hard as he could He couldn’t turn into a prince His luck wasn’t that good How the rock came about A coconut nestled All day and all night Far up a palm tree With no fear of heights His name was Rocco And his place in the sun Was the envy of fruits From Brazil to Saigon He’d been there for decades And was a quiet sort His friends would hang out While Rocco held court But Rocco had a worry Causing his mates to flee His palm tree subsided Leaning over the sea And Rocco was trapped He’d stayed still for too long He couldn’t jump free From the palm and its fronds The tree fell still further And his mates tried to save him Like a pre Cambrian Baywatch But the nuts couldn’t swim At first he was afraid He was petrified And that was his problem As his hopes started to slide ‘Cos he started to flag Then gave up completely Last seen as a rock Rocco sank deep in the sea