We sailed the sea
In a boat made of ivory,
And we sailed away
Till the thirty-third day.
On the thirty-third day,
We docked in a land;
Crafted by the hands
Of a million slaves.
It was sparkling out
In the night darkened sky,
As the people burned
All their candles away.
Into the sky, the smoke rose
So high to the stars,
And it warmed up the air,
And the jumper I’d worn,
Brushed the floor
As I carried it
Along through the streets.
‘No more ice,
Only water,
Only smoke,
Only steam,
No more frost to freeze
The fast running streams.
No more cold to tear
Your lungs at the seams’
This was seen as the reason
To why they were right,
Not wrong, to continue
To set more fires alight.
’It is good, it is good’ they sang.
They danced round the fire;
The warm got warmer as the fire drew higher.
'No more cold, no more cold.
It has melted away.
We’ll only have summer
For the rest of our days.
Under the orange tinted sky,
We’ll stay happily beneath it.
No more white, snow-filled clouds
That sprinkle around us
Like a shroud.
The smoke has melted the cold all away;
We’ll only have summer for the rest of our days.’
This is what the townsfolk did say.
On the forty-third day
A marching band played
For remembrance
Of the famous Chirp-Chirp birds.
It is thought that they’d flown
Far, far away.
As nobody had seen them
For quite a few days.
Because of the smog
and because of the heat,
They could no longer stay
And decided to fleet
From the suffocating air
And the ash filled, choking skies.
They left while they could,
Before all the flock died.
Now pennies are collected in effort to remind
Of the other kinds of birds that may fly away too;
If they all did that, there would be no bird stew.
So, the people pay their pennies to save the last few.
We had to sail away from this hot, smoky land,
On the forty-fifth day, we walked back to the sand,
Where our ivory boat was tied up at the dock,
And we laughed at the sight of the Chirp-chirp bird flock!
They were perched on the boat awaiting our return
To escape this land hidden safely in the stern.
Without having to fly they could relax,
And just lie back;
They wouldn’t even need to give their purple wings a flap.
We remarked how they were clever,
And we let them stay on board.
Then we planned the fate
Of the Chirp-Chirp bird hoard.
When we return, they will live in little, cramped busy zoos,
Or we may even make them into Chirp-Chirp bird stew.
Sep 29, 2017
Sep 29, 2017 at 7:28 AM UTC
We sailed the sea
In a boat made of ivory,
And we sailed away
Till the thirty-third day.
On the thirty-third day,
We docked in a land;
Crafted by the hands
Of a million slaves.
It was sparkling out
In the night darkened sky,
As the people burned
All their candles away.
Into the sky, the smoke rose
So high to the stars,
And it warmed up the air,
And the jumper I’d worn,
Brushed the floor
As I carried it
Along through the streets.
‘No more ice,
Only water,
Only smoke,
Only steam,
No more frost to freeze
The fast running streams.
No more cold to tear
Your lungs at the seams’
This was seen as the reason
To why they were right,
Not wrong, to continue
To set more fires alight.
’It is good, it is good’ they sang.
They danced round the fire;
The warm got warmer as the fire drew higher.
'No more cold, no more cold.
It has melted away.
We’ll only have summer
For the rest of our days.
Under the orange tinted sky,
We’ll stay happily beneath it.
No more white, snow-filled clouds
That sprinkle around us
Like a shroud.
The smoke has melted the cold all away;
We’ll only have summer for the rest of our days.’
This is what the townsfolk did say.
On the forty-third day
A marching band played
For remembrance
Of the famous Chirp-Chirp birds.
It is thought that they’d flown
Far, far away.
As nobody had seen them
For quite a few days.
Because of the smog
and because of the heat,
They could no longer stay
And decided to fleet
From the suffocating air
And the ash filled, choking skies.
They left while they could,
Before all the flock died.
Now pennies are collected in effort to remind
Of the other kinds of birds that may fly away too;
If they all did that, there would be no bird stew.
So, the people pay their pennies to save the last few.
We had to sail away from this hot, smoky land,
On the forty-fifth day, we walked back to the sand,
Where our ivory boat was tied up at the dock,
And we laughed at the sight of the Chirp-chirp bird flock!
They were perched on the boat awaiting our return
To escape this land hidden safely in the stern.
Without having to fly they could relax,
And just lie back;
They wouldn’t even need to give their purple wings a flap.
We remarked how they were clever,
And we let them stay on board.
Then we planned the fate
Of the Chirp-Chirp bird hoard.
When we return, they will live in little, cramped busy zoos,
Or we may even make them into Chirp-Chirp bird stew.
Written in early 2013.