"Seven bums and fourteen legs,
a brazen ecstasy which begs
the question some of us are asking -
is Peter Goulding multi-tasking?"

Martin Parker, Editor, Lighten Up Online

Friday, September 24, 2010

Back to childhood Poetry Bus Part 1

The Poetry Bus is currently sauntering up the East Coast of Scotland with the marvellous Rachel at the wheel. This week's prompt is to think of a character (or series of characters) from a children's story, comic, TV series, film or other story source (it can be a new story or something quite ancient). You can stick to one story source or merge different ones.

I'm going to do two efforts for this one - an old one and a new one. This is the old one...

Wishful Thinking

The sky is painted perfect blue,
The cliffs are rusty brown.
Bold Wile E. Coyote waits
To run Roadrunner down.
The ACME jet-skis are turned on,
The catapult is primed,
And every single detail has
Been tested out and timed.
The seeds are scattered on the ground
[“Especially for Birds.”]
And very soon we’ll cease to hear
Those most annoying words.
“Beep! Beep!” Here comes the flying cloud,
A-speeding down the track.
Coyote deftly lights the fuse
And takes a last look back.
“Beep! Beep!” Roadrunner flashes by,
Coyote’s in the rear.
He’s gaining on him, yard by yard,
The end is surely near!
The cocky bird espies the seed
And stops to take a feed,
Our hero’s fast approaching, God!
He’s very close indeed!
Wile whips out a sharpened axe
And severs R R’s head,
Not even time for one “Beep! Beep!”
Before the bastard’s dead.
In every house around the world,
The children dance with glee.
No more to hear that damned “Beep! Beep!”
Roadrunner’s ceased to be.

10 comments:

  1. Haha...I am a big Fan of The RoadRunner show.I still watch it sometimes...oh...well many times...You have captured all the right details especially the "Beep, Beep" it used to annoy me, don't know why...though I was always on the Roadrunner's side.(weird?)
    I liked this poem very very much...One of my fav characters in there though Roadrunner’s ceased to be!

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  2. Oh you have a dark and dangerous mind! Nevertheless, I enjoyed this. I always felt sorry for Wile E., but I think I wanted them to be FRIENDS, not dinner. Heh.

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  3. Yes!Yes! Yes! Oh how I longed for the coyote to squish the cutesie bird.It was worth the wait!

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  4. Can you just read TFE's comment and take it as mine?
    You nailed it, Peter.

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  5. Thanks everyone. I always thought it would have made a great end-of-show finale (He could always have come back in a shower, or something)

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  6. Hurray for Wily! At last the stupid bird gets its just desserts.

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  7. Oh roadrunner...will you ever learn??!

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  8. I always wanted the coyote to win as well! Your poem says everything I wante to say.

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