May 2021
"BEWARE THE DONALL DEMPSEY MY SON!"
The frog slid slowly down
my throat.
It's legs sticking out of
my mouth...still kicking.
The world was running away
into the final darkness.
My eyes were robbed
of trees and sun.
The day being stolen
from me.
"Death by frog!"
How unlikely a dying.
The bullies were all
short-trousered lads like me
sculpted from the sunlight
of 1963.
Then either the frog gave
a desperate last minute kick
or I silently yelled
and expelled
friend frog who
having escaped death by swallowing
hopped it
lost itself in the long grass.
Perhaps the horrible tale
of down-the-gullet
is told still to its descendants
far removed from that sunny day.
"Better watch out..." Mamma Frog
would make her voice shiver
making her tiddlers tremble
with trepidation
"...or the Donall Dempsey
will get you!"
*
I was having a bad day....nothing going my way....but still Kim Moore managed to wring this out of me in her wonderful writing workshop. She applied a Chinese burn to my mind and out popped this in a seven and a half minute sprint of the mind. I was halfways through reliving the trauma of a frog being shoved down my throat to gales of laughter when I suddenly thought "What about the poor frog? How did he cope?"
What did he tell the other frogs and how in the world of frogs it became the tallest of tall tales and my name entered the lexicon of frog horror stories that have been passed down through generations of frog families despite being the innocent victim! All the frog heard in its terrification was my name
chanted over and over again in great grievous glee "Ha ha ha...Donall Dempsey!" Me and friend frog were in this tormenting together. But despite all this my name has gone down in frog history as if I were a Grendel or a Grendel's mother or a Jabberwocky. Just say Donall Dempsey and see what the reaction is...faster than a Basho plop and splash
The frog slid slowly down
my throat.
It's legs sticking out of
my mouth...still kicking.
The world was running away
into the final darkness.
My eyes were robbed
of trees and sun.
The day being stolen
from me.
"Death by frog!"
How unlikely a dying.
The bullies were all
short-trousered lads like me
sculpted from the sunlight
of 1963.
Then either the frog gave
a desperate last minute kick
or I silently yelled
and expelled
friend frog who
having escaped death by swallowing
hopped it
lost itself in the long grass.
Perhaps the horrible tale
of down-the-gullet
is told still to its descendants
far removed from that sunny day.
"Better watch out..." Mamma Frog
would make her voice shiver
making her tiddlers tremble
with trepidation
"...or the Donall Dempsey
will get you!"
*
I was having a bad day....nothing going my way....but still Kim Moore managed to wring this out of me in her wonderful writing workshop. She applied a Chinese burn to my mind and out popped this in a seven and a half minute sprint of the mind. I was halfways through reliving the trauma of a frog being shoved down my throat to gales of laughter when I suddenly thought "What about the poor frog? How did he cope?"
What did he tell the other frogs and how in the world of frogs it became the tallest of tall tales and my name entered the lexicon of frog horror stories that have been passed down through generations of frog families despite being the innocent victim! All the frog heard in its terrification was my name
chanted over and over again in great grievous glee "Ha ha ha...Donall Dempsey!" Me and friend frog were in this tormenting together. But despite all this my name has gone down in frog history as if I were a Grendel or a Grendel's mother or a Jabberwocky. Just say Donall Dempsey and see what the reaction is...faster than a Basho plop and splash
