The opening lines of a Jonathan Swift pastiche.

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.