Little chicken, soft and fluffy,
Little ball of fluffy wool.
Chirping, cheeky, fun to see,
As you act and play the fool.
Little chicken you're a beauty,
Little chicken you're a winner.
Little chicken grow up quickly,
Then we can eat you for our dinner.

I saw a little hippopotamus,
Sitting on his own.
He said, 'There is a lot of us,
"But I like to be alone.
"I like to wallow in the mud,
"And splash in dirty water,
"I like to frighten little girls,
"But know I didn't ough'ter."

I became fascinated by 'Spoonerisms' and nonsense poems. The following poem is Spoonerism gone mad and although it is nonsense, somehow it seems to make sense! When I first wrote it my Literature Lecturer thought it was brilliant. Some years later I submitted it to a small literary magazine where it was described as: Garbage.
Make up your own mind.

I laundered homely as a clown that roars on by on oil or pills,
En wall at thunce I bore a crown, a ghost of Holden motor grills.
Deride the rake, bequeath the grease, utterly entrancing ignition keys.

Carburetors as the spars that shine, a tinkle on the milky way,
They reach on never bending line along the marching of the day.
Ten thousand slaw I with a lance, engined their heads in sleekly glance.

The Paves beride them hanced, but lay down in the worklings, slaves agree.
A Knowit could not but be fey in such a morbund come, by me.
I glazed and glazed, but wittle rort what health, to me, so slow had taught.

Far aft men on, why louch and cry, no vacancy, extremely rude.
They flash upon that inward eye which is the kiss of deathditude.
And then my clown, with homely thrills, he dances with the motor grills.

1977, Tone Deff. With sincere apologies to William Wordsworth.

From the age of seven until I was thirty-one I lived in Peterborough, England and for most of those years there was a well-known character in the town named Walter Cornelius. I don't know his origins but he only spoke broken English. He was a huge muscle-man who would do virtually anything for  a quid. I wrote the following poem about him.

Walter   c1978. Tone Deff

All day long he'd roam around the streets, Fifteen stone above large bare feet.
Bare to the waist, see his muscles move, bristles on his chin his head shaved smooth.
Publicity was the drug for which he craved,
There were those who said he was depraved.
Walter Cornelius was his name, he'd bend iron bars just for a game.
Sometimes the local cinema for publicity gags,
Would use him as a sandwich man dressed in rags,
Or dressed as an Indian, a monk, or a sheik, banging on a drum to make people wake.

Sometimes his picture would feature in the papers of the land,
Laying paving slabs upon his chest, breaking them with a hammer,
Or walking through the streets of town, balancing on his hands,
Or demolishing brick walls, his head used as a rammer.

A supermarket owner told our Walter that on TV he'd be seen,
If he could leap from the roof of his store and fly across the River Nene.
Walter accepted the challenge though some thought him fully deranged.
So he got himself into training while everything else was arranged.

The day was fine, there were people as far as the eye could see,
Reporters were there, photographers too and people from the TV.
Walter climbed onto the roof, and the crowd began to cheer and shout,
He got to his mark, started to run and over the river jumped out.
But it wasn't to be, for with a great big splash,
Into the water - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Walter crashed.