Elephants Like Burgers

This one was written a long time ago.  And reflects my own eating preferences of the time a lot more accurately than those of elephants.  It was nearly illustrated by someone that is good at such things .  But then it wasn't.  I still like it.

An elephant called Martin

went walking through the woods

looking for a corner shop

where he could buy some food

For elephants they don't like grass

or leaves, or nuts, or hay

No - Elephants like hot dogs

served with chips on a tray!

Elephants like burgers

served in twos and threes

much better than vegetables

or things that grow on trees

Martin found his corner shop

and bought a pastry slice

full of creamy ham and chicken

he thought it tasted nice

He followed it with lollipops

and lots and lots of sweets

mixed in with some ice cream

for elephants love treats!

An elephant called Martin

walked back through the wood

but Martin walked back slowly

as he was stuffed with food...

Magic briefly recaptured

Magic, briefly recaptured

Like the lights on my Granny's Christmas tree,

A thousand years old,  maybe,  like my dad,

in bright,  gaudy colours, unlike him,

So many colours,

All different,

All sparkling,

All looking so wonderful that I want to cram them in my mouth

For that is how I experience all the most amazing things

Where all the things that spark my brain happen,

I find myself,  with phone accidentally,  illicitly on,

Gliding down,  engines off,  to Edinburgh,  

the glorious glowing technicolour lights

filling some space at the back of my brain

with magic.

I am in my pyjamas,  insisting on seeing the tree in the dark,

with no ambient,

bland,

bulb light

to detract from it.

I recall how,  wishing to seem mature,  

I agreed with my mother that white lights were somehow more pure,

how I didn't feel I could tell her

I wanted a tree that looked like a thousand of the most beautifully synthetic fruit flavour sweets had been struck by lightning.

Grown ups don't want to experience their Christmas tree by putting it in their mouth.

That is why they are boring, wrong

They don't want to stand there

in their pyjamas,

holding onto a hand that dangles above their head,

seriously questioning in that head whether something so magically beautiful,

so perfectly designed,

could not taste delicious.

Questioning whether an opportunity to eat just one

Only one

Fairy light will come my way

A red one - that means strawberry

I like that,  strawberries never taste as good as bright red strawberry flavour things

Fruit pastilles are nothing if not slightly squishy fairy lights

Deprived of the electric

This boring quality of the grown ups

It may explain the surprisingly low rate

of Christmas tree-eating electrocution fatalities,

but the trade off doesn't strike me as a good deal.