The Frivolous Cake - Mervyn Peake

The Frivolous Cake - Mervyn Peake



The Frivolous Cake
by Mervyn Peake - From the Titus Groan Trilogy.

Mervyn-peake


A freckled and frivolous cake there was,
that sailed on a pointless sea,
or any lugubrious lake there was
in a manner emphatic and free.
How jointlessly, and how jointlessly
the frivolous cake sailed by
On the waves of the oceans that pointlessly
threw fish to the lilac sky.

Oh plenty and plenty of hake there was
of a glory beyond compare
and every conceivable make there was
was tossed to the lilac air.

Up the smooth billows and over the crests
of the cumbersome combers flew
The frivolous cake with a knife in the wake
of herself and her currently crew
Like a sword fish grim it would bounce and skim.

(This dinner knife fierce and blue)
and the frivolous cake was filled to the brim
with the fun of her currently crew.

Oh plenty and plenty of hake there was
of a glory beyond compare
and every conceivable make there was
was tossed through the lilac air.

Around the shores of the elegant Isles
where cat-fish bask and purr.
and lick their paws with adhesive smiles
and wiggle their fins of fur,
They fly and fly 'neath the lilac sky
the frivolous cake and the knife
who winketh his glamourous indigo eye
in the wake of his future wife.

The crumbs blow free down the pointless sea
to the beat of a cakey heart
and the sensitive steel of the knife can feel
that love is a race apart.
In the speed of the lingering light are blown.
The crumbs to hake above,
and the tropical air vibrates to the drone
of a cake in the throws of love.