Manic Lullabye: Part 2

I woke up from my fearsome dream,
And yelled, in an almighty scream,
“Where is my kipper? Oh my word,
The fish has turned into a bird!”
Leaving its cage, the kipper flew
Straight down Manic Avenue,
And flew into a rusty bike
(Or a park bench, if you like).
This bike - or bench, I don’t mind which -
Threw my kipper in the ditch.

The kipper-fish, whose name was Bob,
Turned into a gooey blob.
I swallowed it (for I had run
After my kipper when it done
That thing, you know, that thing it did),
And then the park bench ran and hid.
(Or wheeled, if, as I suppose,
The bicycle your favour shows.)
Fed up of this crazy tale,
I visited inside a whale.

And Jonah there, inside the belly
Of the whale, (both damp and smelly,
The whale, that is, and Jonah too,
He couldn’t leave to - well, you know.)
So anyway, our Jonah lad
Was pleased to see me, oh, so glad.
The whale too, the happy boy,
Puked up on the beach through joy.
(An experience, I’ll make it plain,
I never hope to have again.)

At this point, I bade him farewell,
For I had heard the dinner bell.
And, in the canteen of the school,
I landed in the swimming pool.
The diving teachers, doing flips,
Were soaking all the students’ chips.
Bored of this noisy, tiresome place,
I jumped and landed on my face
Among the mermaids, on the sand,
In a crazy water-land.

The mermaids, though, were dull and slow,
So I told them I had to go.
So I swam up to get some air -
Just to find it wasn’t there!
Just water, from the ocean floor,
Continuing for evermore!
At this point I began to fret.
Five minutes without breathing yet.
At this point, oh, for goodness’ sake,
I felt myself begin to wake.

My mother said, “Oh darling, please
Lay off of all the late-night cheese!”