It is not unfair to describe the author of Gulliver's Travels as the Derek 'n' Clive
of his day. Below is the opening of my pastiche of Swift's scatological masterpiece
The Lady's Dressing Room.
The Modern Lady's Dressing Room.
Two days’ and nights’ relentless screaming,
Her piercing voice, her constant scheming;
The diva from their bedroom issues,
In search of wet wipe toilet tissues.
Johnny to vodka bottle glued,
Is now with foul portent imbued.
His senses reel in disarray
From devil’s dandruff berm on tray.
His bloodshot orbs take in the mess
She made in her contrived distress, 10
Whereof to aid the Reader’s gist,
There follows now a partial list.
First is the smashed up China plate,
The frisbee she aimed at his pate;
Now trampled into grit pyrites,
Ground Dresden with IKEA unites,
Baroque with hipster equal made
By the stilettos of the jade.
Ask not of Plato what there is.
Of foodstuffs smeared on surfaces: 20
The curdled oat milk dallies here
In sticky pond of Belgian beer,
Mixed with the vegan canine cuts
For her hair-trigger yap dog mutts,
Kale bonbon, flavoured as black rat
To satiate her high-strung cat,
Floats in a greasy oozing sea
Of vinaigrette and sesame.
From bottles slither at their ease
Fluids published as Japanese: 30
The ginger soy which ere annointed
That puffa fish which disappointed.
Great bulbs of garlic, squashed, congeal
Slain by the lance of Amber’s heel.
Hard by the suppurating quince
Not wiped away this six month since,
Stale marmalades and rancid jams
Miscegenate with rotting clams.
Behold the double Belfast sink
Whence emanates that foetid stink 40
Of mouldy pans in oily slick
Anointed with something like sick.
Here bluebottles obscenely buzz
Over the penicillin fuzz.
One thinks to see a crocodile
Twixt pot and ladle glide with guile,
Negotiate the arachnids,
And nose beneath the unscrewed lids.
Next on Depp’s aching eyes impose,
And eke assail his tender nose, 50
Pandora’s Box, laystall of sin:
The contents of the pedal bin.
Peel’s mausoleum, yoghurt’s tomb,
Graveyard, bacteria’s orgy room,
Here feast the loutish hordes of flies
On nameless skidmark as it dries.
The multitudes of maggots writhe
As nymphs in loathsome puddles blithe.
