h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Sleep is just a memory -
I'm tired all day.
Long live Bo Peep
Whose lost sheep, astray,
Leap
Over the gate
At such a nervous rate
I cannot count them
(It's a wonder the rams ever catch them to mount them)
But where was I? Yawn, oh yes, sleep,
Sleep, so difficult for me
I wouldn't mind the pills the injections, whisky neat,
Routines to keep,
If only I could get some sleep.

To the sleep store went I,
In direst need of some shuteye.
The ewe at the counter, in shock,
Gaped at my haggard face. "My flock
In pastures remote do currently gambol,"
Said she. "They caper, cavort, and amble.
I'll have them pages. My sheep
Will soon arrive, and then you'll sleep."

The Welsh are know large flocks to keep
Of several diff’rent sorts of sheep
They also wear green Hunter boots
Wherein the they place the hindmost foots.

Across the Milky Way, with sparkling stars aglitter,
My ship I sailed one night, in frosty air so bitter.
Within the Captain's quarters, where my crew and I retire,
We told our wildest stories as we sat around the fire.
At length the fire went out. From my dream I did awaken.
I'd left my window open. I was shiverin' and shakin'.

Making Toast
(Harry Graham)
Making toast at the fireside,
Nurse fell in the grate and died;
And, what makes it ten times worse,
All the toast was burned with nurse.

A nurse, dear chap, is not a toy.
She comes to heal you, not to play.
Her lovely face you might enjoy,
But from her , do stay away!

Hush- By-Baby

Hush-a-bye babies
Hush quite a lot
Bad babies get rabies
And have to be shot.

(W.C.Sellar & R.J.Yeatman)

Babies are what we were.
Babies are what we'll be again.

Another Harry Graham one

Little Willie from the mirror licked the mercury off,
Thinking in his childish error it would cure whooping cough.
At the funeral Willie's mother smartly said to Mrs. Brown,
"T'was a chilly day for Willie when the mercury went down."

My dreams go belly up,
But I must plod on.
Dreams get no wakes, no cup
Of joy, just sunsets, no dawns.

I must be channeling Emily Dickinson.

Babies sleep - perchance to dream,
Bad ones do little else but scream,
That's why father - in extreme,
Drowned them all within the stream.

esp., but not exclusively, 1309 'n 1310

Jab

The original Graham version was;

Father heard the children scream,
So he threw them in the stream,
Saying as he drowned the third,
‘Children should be seen, not heard!’

Since we're doing poems abour streams and Emily Dickinson:

Down time's quaint stream, without an oar, We are enforced to sail,
Our port s secret, our perchamce a gale.
What skipper would the risk incur, what buccanneer would ride,
Without a surety of the wind, or schedule of the tide?

I'm another fan of Emily Dickinson, but this is mine :-

MOLTEN SUNSET

Sunset over Lincoln,
And the world's turned upside down.
The ocean's in the heavens
and the sky is on the ground.

There are no ships a-sailing
on this msted, swirling sea,
just canopies of leaves above,
on overhanging trees.

And silver rocks in shadow,
never seen by golden sun
hold promises of future dreams,
and lives not yet begun.


elisabeth p.w.
(just in case I die tomorrow :/)

Nice

Dreams - posted on another thread.

Imagination

If what we think, not when, but why,
Maybe we think, too hard, too deep,
And, when we do, we cannot sleep.
Go off – leave me, my thoughts alone,
I want to do things on my own.
No need for others’ intervention,
Allow me time for my invention.
Tomorrow at the break of day,
I will think clearly anyway,
Open the secrets of my dream.
Notate the pattern of my scheme.

Deep thoughts are like snow;
The impish little flakes
Form colonies which grow
In swirling white dreamscapes.

From a former French colony

Mister Brock

Badmini once met with a bad Mister Brock
Who nibbled her toe and took off her sock
She did the right thing - she jumped on it’s head
And slaughtered the barsteward til it was dead
She ripped off its skin - as Benshasha maids do
Cleaned the guts and the tripe and then carved it in two
Sold the bits and the body on the edge of the road
And then thought ‘what to do with the rest of the load’
Ami Hamid was searching for a shaving dis ting
Badger-bristle brushes are now the Morocco in-thing.

It is not really my turn but to keep things going:


As Badmini sat there, by the side of the road,
An albatross emptied its fish smelling load
A cat and a bat, plus an arrogant owl,
Pounced on her and said, “You are horribly foul.
Don’t you know that badgers are protected?”
Badmini replied – with a tear in her eye,
“If I did I’d be rather dejected,
But the fact of it is that it tore off my sock,
And for that I gave it a bit of a knock,
If you knew what Bâadmini means,
You will soon be hearing the screams,
As I boil my tagine - tie you all up with rope
And make cat, bat, owl and albatross soup."