Submissions are invited of poetry to commemorate the life and mourn the death of DS2's guinea pig

[Threadworm]

Died yesterday after a mercifully short illness.

In Memoriam

So, farewell then
Beetle.
That was not your real name.

Internet paranoia has made me choose
An alias.
And Keith's mum says that Beetle is
A very good name
For a guinea pig.

Especially one that was black and fat.
That was probably what killed you.
Being so fat
I mean.

E. J. Thread, aged 17 and a half.

[eemie]

They told me little piggie, they told me you were dead
They gave me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed
I wept as I remembered how often you and I
Had eaten all the lettuce and drunk our dishes dry
And now that thou art lying, my guinea-porcine guest
A rigid little body, so recently at rest
Still is thy pleasant treadmill, thy carpet stains awake
For Death he takest all away
But them he cannot take

[IorekByrnison]

lol at everyone's here. Though brutal, I think paolosgirl's dd's poem may be the best.

[paolosgirl]

I shall convery your sentiments to DD - she will be thrilled!

[TsarChasm]

Yes I liked it too Paolosgirl.

Factual and mournful and short. It would look good on a headstone too. Andrew Motion be afraid .

[Threadworm]

Write ye not unto the Pope.
We have no need of holy smoke.
This wonderous dead GP of ours
Is canonised by Mumsnet Towers.

By verse it is beatified.
What need of titles has it?
I think we should be satisfied
Now it's a Mumsnet Classic.

[Boco]

Get a jiffy bag, go and dig the ground up
Send him to Mp, if this doesn't make the round-up

[paolosgirl]

It's actually impossible to forget Rosie, as she was buried one dark and stormy day and DH in his rush to get back inside didn't flatten the grave down properly. We now have a permanently raised bit right in the middle of our lawn.

[IorekByrnison]

I have another sonnet. (I've always wanted to write a sonnet but the occasion never demanded it until now.) This one is for the dog.

Small dog! Your smaller foe has gone to ground,
His shining eye no more on yours will stay
Half froze with fright at such a monstrous hound
That glared as though some fiendish game to play.

(And truth be known, the pig was right to fear:
The pointed teeth you bared were fit to crunch
Some morsel, that might find its way too near
Those jaws for whom the time was always lunch.)

Where now, o frosted canine, should you find
A playmate for those hours 'twixt morn and bed?
Although the game was sport of cruel kind
It seems a friend is lost now he is dead.

Could doggy eyes spurt tears as ours do make
This pup might turn a desert to a lake.

[Threadworm]

Wonderful, Iorek, both of your sonnets.

I'd like to try a sonnet, instead of doggeral.

[onebatmother]

LOL at Boco and TsarChasm.
genuinely impressed by Iorek

[onebatmother]

If it's okay with you guys, I'd like to break with tradition actually - get things a little loosened up, okay?

[Merrylegs]

Oh guinea pig! You joyous beast
You made my life so merry.
And then you went and popped your clogs
Unreasonable?
Very.

[Boco]

Will you be incorporating fecal impaction into that mime onebat?

[onebatmother]

No?

Okay. Perhaps we'd all be more comfortable if we could express our sadness communally, yeah?





Bright eyes, burning like fire
Bright eyes, how can you close and fail?
How can the light that burned so brightly
Suddenly burn so pale? Bright eyes.

[onebatmother]

Boco - when I was jerking and flailing? That was the fecal impaction bit.

[Threadworm]

Full inches ten my guinea pig lies,
Of his bones are compost made:
Those are slime that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer recycling --
Fertility-heightening.
Mumsnetters hourly recite their praise.
One more excuse to waste their days.

Your mine was very moving.

Funnily enough, we did actually sing 'Bright Eyes' (in a spirit of heartless sarcasm) over the corpse of a rabbit that the dog slaughtered just before Christmas.

[Threadworm]

mine mime

[mollyroger]

[onebatmother]

Excellent - eurythmic mourning!

[Threadworm]

Is no-one going to say 'Oh very good threadworm? I am in mourning you know. It makes me needy.

[mollyroger]

I got an arts council grant for that!

[Merrylegs]

(Our guinea too recently shuffled off this mortal coil. As we were processing his dead cold body (stuffed in shoebox) into the garden for burial, kids began trying to hum the funeral march. Unfortunately it came out wrong and poor old 'Fluffy' was laid to rest to the dulcet strains of the theme from Star Wars.

Duh duh duh DAH dah...)

[onebatmother]

That was excellent, Threadie. How is the monograph coming along?

[mollyroger]

[onebatmother]

Shoeboxes only have two functions, don't they? To contain shoes, and the corpses of small mammals.