(To the tune of Rule Britannia.) Chorus: Cool, lasagne! Lasagne's what I crave! But it's still hot from the microwave. When pasta sheets and Bolognese Are interweaved with layers of white sauce No cook can help but sing the praise Of this most excellent main course. (Chorus) Less filling feasts, so often served, Can never presume to compete: From thee leftovers are preserved; Thy guests are always left replete. (Chorus) The grated cheese strewn on top Can go crispy or simply melt; As the bubbles of sauce pop, No greater scent can e'er be smelt. (Chorus) No haute cuisine could take thy place; No other food could I so yearn

The Dead Crow and the Skylark by chugglepuff, literature

Literature

The Dead Crow and the Skylark

The heath, spread out and pinned, a frog dissected, shuddered under probing winds, leaves scurrying across its surface like chivvied children. Trees, in their huddles, bowed inwards and muttered, weathered gossips tutting at the gale. There, in amidst such trees: a crow, not so long dead that it had lost its shine, but still dead, still empty and flightless. It lay with dignity, with feathers smoothed, appearing more to await a funeral than a fox's eager jaws, its beak not gaping with a final croak but closed as hands in prayer. There, among the brittle branches littering the ground, it let the air pull dust around it, and d

A Very English Drought by chugglepuff, literature

Literature

A Very English Drought

That summer when the soil sprang apart and gaped like lizard skin, like fractured tiles, the air thirsty, snatching—that summer when leaves hung like shopping bags from the arms of old ladies, and flies were fat and drooping—that was the summer the English lamented. How low the pond had got, how dry the earth round the begonias! The undrifting heat, the purring of the fan, the hosepipe ban and suntan cream— how they grated on the English, the poor, contrary English, as they perspired with fixed smiles and sauntered awkwardly in jaunty shorts— and wished with all their hearts to moan of drizzle.

Black-Headed Gull by chugglepuff, literature

Literature

Black-Headed Gull

Where do you fly to, black-headed gull, When you're done eating chips on the pier? Do you casually perch on some great steamer's hull In a place that's far distant from here? Do you dive past the waves in the stormiest gales, Just catching your toes in the foam? Do you glimpse dolphin fins and flying fish scales When you travel away from your home? Where do you fly to, out of my reach— Some place of which I couldn't dream? Or do you just flutter down onto the beach Where you've spied some poor blighter's ice cream?

Winter by chugglepuff, literature

Literature

Winter

Winter should be read in heavy tones, gravelly and ponderous, and by a voice that weights each word, a tortoise voice that knows to pause and does not need to shout. And it will say, "It is blue-grey, grey-blue, that misty hue of sky and muck and road unfurling, the roofs and sleeping windows, the naked tree bark, dulled metal of street lamps; it is blue-grey, grey-blue, the dim shade of the grudging light that tints the blind dog's eye, warms the dead man's skin; all blue-grey, grey-blue, daubed heavy-handed, melancholy, waiting for the night." And here it will draw in the biting air and find its eyes caught in the muddi

The Lobster Man by chugglepuff, literature

Literature

The Lobster Man

There was a man that I once knew Who shed his skin each time he grew; He told me it was dirt and rust, All memory enslaved in dust: He could not carry such a crust, For he must start each time anew. He would not spend his whole life trapped In something effortlessly scrapped When he could be quite free to swim And leave it all upon a whim; His shell meant nothing more to him Than that in which he must be wrapped. I told him I would let it rot And he replied that I would not, For he dared not leave it behind For some unwelcome soul to find And try to have him reconfined; Instead, he simply ate the lot. I asked not how he kept

Do Not Wait Till Winter Comes by chugglepuff, literature

Literature

Do Not Wait Till Winter Comes

I beg you, do not wait till winter comes, And trees regret the leaves they left to fall, To wish that you had gathered summer plums— For when the thunder starts the war with drums, Your longings cannot shield you from the squall; I beg you, do not wait till winter comes. It does no good when wind dries lips and gums, And you bemoan not having bought a shawl, To wish that you had gathered summer plums. The very day the first ripe fruit succumbs Must be the day you act—or not at all; I beg you, do not wait till winter comes. It is too late when birds fret over crumbs, When all the world rests in an icy pall, To wish that

Reflections by chugglepuff, literature

Literature

Reflections

This love is an extended metaphor, perhaps claiming that a bumblebee is a cumulus cloud (or, indeed, the other way round) —both too heavy to hang as they do in the sky, great weights oblivious to gravity, and with an air of steady certainty that they are keeping the world ticking over, a self-assured busyness from which we must forever be distant. We delight in bright images, in suddennes

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