FLATUS REVOLTUS REX by Tim Briffa.
Beside the hamlet Kilmarnochnoo,
Where roam most wearily,
Upon boggy land the grumblehogs
Alongside the straggy trees.
Upon this dreary, barren moor,
There breathed another brute,
A beast so horrid in quagmire lurked,
‘twould make the horntoad puke.
From twenty yard this loathsome slob,
Could slay the strongest man,
With foul flatulent wind from its behind,
More loud than the town brass band.
Well the hamlet folk enough had had,
Of Flatus Revoltus Rex,
And thus drew straws to from a squad,
That would eradicate the pest.
Thrum, Strum and Tweedledum,
McFlibbertygibbet and Stumble,
Bramblefoot and Willoughby,
Blott, Sprocket and Rumble.
Ten fearless chums upon a quest,
That ne’er would they forget,
But not one quivered and not one quaked,
As they waited for the sun to set.
Thence bade goodbye their sleepy town,
And trudged through spludginess,
Unto the marsh where knew they slept,
The fiend discourteous.
Young Willoughby tiptoed ahead,
Too far for his own good,
For Rex was quick and with a sprightly twist,
Blew the boy from whence he stood.
Three furlong he flew through the air,
With a scream that pierced the night,
He groaned one final ghastly breath,
Then turned a deathly white.
The stench of rotting herring guts,
Rancid beef and egg,
Not reached a nose of the nine men left,
Each pinched with a wooden peg.
But Thrum a cold he’d had all day,
And could feel a sneeze a-brewing,
His peg it was atchooed away,
And that was his undoing.
The eight became two groups of four,
To ensure two pronged attack,
But Bramblefoot lit up his pipe,
Combusting the four at back.
The last four quite horriblified,
From South, West, North and East,
Drew close til they stood all around,
This gruesome numbskull beast.
Three-score warts upon its snout,
All blubbery and gristle,
Slimescale back and grisly grin,
And hair as sharp as thistle.
Each grabbed a leg of the bean-filled bulk,
With military precision,
And with the creature pinned right down,
Embarked upon their mission.
A king-sized cork,
Which Blott had brought,
Was thrust to muscley Sprockett,
With all his might, he stuffed it like a plug into a socket.
The creature groaned, its fizzog grimaced,
As it pumped to no avail,
A gaseous blast its carcass swelled
With the strength of a Force Nine gale.
The fatty lump grew fatter still,
And fatter still than that,
As big and round as an air balloon,
Or a blue-faced wobblybat.
‘Til with a bang that was heard as far,
As the Isle of Dunclaness,
The thing rained down in mucal bits,
Of putrefying mess.
Blott smiled to Sprocket who smiled,
To Stumble who smiled to Strum,
And arm in arm, their pegs still on,
The hamlet’s song they sung.
“Kilmarnochnoo, there’s nout we’d not do,
One day the beast to rid,
And when it’s done, we’ll get drunk on rum,”
And that was what they did.