Poem of the month: The Frivolous Cake

The Frivolous Cake 

A freckled and frivolous cake there was 

That sailed upon a pointless sea, 

Or any lugubrious lake there was 

In a manner emphatic and free. 

How jointlessly, and how jointlessly 

The frivolous cake sailed by 

On the waves of the ocean that pointlessly 

Threw fish to the lilac sky. 

Oh, plenty and plenty of hake there was 

Of a glory beyond compare, 

And every conceivable make there was 

Was tossed through the lilac air. 

Up the smooth billows and over the crests 

Of the cumbersome combers flew 

The frivolous cake with a knife in the wake 

Of herself and her curranty crew. 

Like a swordfish grim it would bounce and skim 

(This dinner knife fierce and blue), 

And the frivolous cake was filled to the brim 

With the fun of her curranty crew. 

Oh, plenty and plenty of hake there was 

Of a glory beyond compare - 

And every conceivable make there was 

Was tossed through the lilac air. 

Around the shores of the Elegant Isles 

Where the cat-fish bask and purr 

And lick their paws with adhesive smiles 

And wriggle their fins of fur, 

They fly and fly 'neath the lilac sky - 

The frivolous cake, and the knife 

Who winketh his glamorous indigo eye 

In the wake of his future wife. 

The crumbs blow free down the pointless sea 

To the beat of a cakey heart 

And the sensitive steel of the knife can feel 

That love is a race apart 

In the speed of the lingering light are blown 

The crumbs to the hake above, 

And the tropical air vibrates to the drone 

Of a cake in the throes of love.

~Mervyn Peake