Not on Dover Beach

Tefal

Lopsided head, dead on the sloping strand.
Smooth, sea polished shingle sizzles around
The victim of a mindless, callous hunt.
Transparently, he was born a mutant runt
Misfortune dogged him from his strangled birth
Until annihilation put an end to Bert
When it came the blow was random
His assailants worked in tandem
And cornered him beneath the pier
And despatched him swift without a care
The denounement was not so smooth
As they kicked him in the ocean crude
Tefal sank but not to the bottom
His killers thought he was forgotten
But he was borne by longshore and by rip
And in Pevensey he rested in deep silt
That is until a passing fisher digging for lug
His preserved remains out he dug
‘What’s up’ said Tefal examining his head
‘You’ with saline brevity the fisher said
‘These twenty years I have been there
Dead and happy without fear or care.
Why do you give me such a stare?’
‘A hermit crab is crawling from your nose,
And there is distinct molusculation of your toes.
My name is Fred and if I might
Let’s go and show you to my wife
She is a fan of oddity
That is why she married me.’
So, from the strand they did repair
Tefal picking worms from ear and hair
And went to Fred’s house and went right in
And Fred’s wife gasped ‘Well, look at him!’
Fred explained the circumstances of his discovery
And Mrs Fred decided on Tefal’s recovery
Was plovers eggs and strawberry jam
And slices of her homemade ham
That she had cured with her own fair hand
With the leg Fred found last year washed up upon the strand.

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