THE RIME OF THE SAVAGE GOLDFISH

Beware the savage goldfish
with teeth like nine-inch nails,
a mighty chain-saw down his back
and razor-blades for scales.

Beware the savage goldfish.
Beware his evil eye,
as ever and ever and a day
he silently glides by.

He’s twice as tall as Blackpool Tower
and broad as the Isle of Man.
There is no fish or serpent yet
can measure to his span.

The killer whales, the swordfish,
the shark and the manta ray,
they panic in their thousands
when he goes out to play.

For there is no stretch of water
no lake or river-bed
where the awful savage goldfish
has not raised his head.

There is no sea or ocean
from the equator to the poles
from which the savage goldfish
has not gathered souls.

One day the savage goldfish
was basking in the sun
with a tummy full of tugboats
after the day was done.

As the evening orb dipped in the sea
and darkness filled the sky
something strange and eerie
caught his evil goldfish eye.

For everywhere upon those waves
as the ocean turned to night
there danced a hundred thousand points
of incandescent light.

The awful savage goldfish,
the terror of every shore,
had never seen the like of this
in all his life before.

The water rose and the water fell,
his body dipped and turned,
but his skin, to what was luminous,
tingled, twitched and burned.

And now the savage goldfish
was as meek as any lamb,
as a hundred thousand points of fire
pricked him as he swam.

The awful savage goldfish
ran on before the tide.
He searched for bays and estuaries
where he might safely hide.

But every wave that now he rode
did glow as bright as day,
and every slap of water seemed
to brand him where he lay.

Sparks flew out from his nine-inch teeth,
his scales grew hot as coals.
It seemed his mighty skin of steel
was mighty full of holes.

And so the savage goldfish
swam as fast as he could flee.
He did not know that humankind
called this the Irish Sea.

He did not know or notice
a pipe from off the shore
or how the glory all around
came from the filth it bore.

And so he swam as fast as he could,
there was no time to wait,
until he came to what humankind
had deemed St George’s Strait.

This was open sea at last,
the broad Atlantic swell.
He swam and swam as every ship
rang out its warning bell.

‘Beware the savage goldfish!
Beware the teeth that bite!
Turn back your ships if you would live
to see the morning light!’

But the awful savage goldfish
had one thing on his mind,
to swim as fast as ever he could
and leave the glow behind.

And now as he ran for pure relief
in the wide Atlantic space,
an empty coca-cola can
smacked him in the face.

There came one more, and yet again
and then a bottle or two,
until wherever he looked, such stuff
completely filled his view.

The awful savage goldfish
sank as deep as ever he could
and there he breathed the sea again
and knew that it was good.

But what was this, this brackish taste
that struck him as he swam?
That made him shut his goldfish mouth
as tight as any clam?

That made him squint his evil eye,
that made him twist and stretch?
A taste that grew more brackish still
till he began to retch?

Down there in the depths of the ocean,
his race was nearly run.
Of all the creatures of the sea
he was the only one.

The octopus, as well as the sharks,
the swordfish and the whales,
were only pictures in a book,
no more than fairy tales.

The goldfish lost his nine-inch teeth,
dissolved in the acid sea,
his scales all blunt, his chain-saw back
as rusty as could be.

The awful savage goldfish
sank down to the mud below.
This at last was his journey’s end,
with nowhere else to go.

So beware the savage goldfish
with teeth like nine-inch nails,
a mighty chain-saw down his back
and razor-blades for scales.

Beware the savage goldfish,
beware his evil eye,
but so beware much more my friends
the thing that made him die.

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