Weird Beard

  

A wizard who was very weird,

possessed a never-ending beard,

Whilst he slept his weird beard woke

and went to play strange tricks on folk.

It slithered out of his letter box

a rustling horde of silver locks

floating on the air as if

the tip was having a damn good sniff

for mischief and odd things to do

then to find them, off it flew.

Down a chimney the whiskers went

and swapped round every ornament

inside a room where fast asleep

a mum and dad were snoring deep.

On their bed the Weird Beard rose

then stuffed itself up father's nose

and mother's too! Yet neither woke

Not even when grey hair like smoke

emerged from out their ears in glee

and swapped their brains mischievously

To find that they'd become each other

Mother Father, Father Mother,

how they ran about appalled,

Dad wore lipstick, Mum was bald,

But by then the busy beard,

had looped a loop and disappeared

The night was young, the beard unrolled

along dark streets - as long as bold:

It wound up lamposts, slid down grids

noisily banged two dustbin lids

It broke inside bank and there

making hands of silver hair

turned the combination dial

opened the vault and grabbed a pile

of money. Then it dashed outside

and threw the money far and wide

handing fifty euro notes

to puzzled mice and startled goats.

It picked up cars and threw them high

juggling twenty in the sky

then got bored and put them down

on rooftops all across the town

Through a bakery weird beard stole

threading every donut hole

it mowed the streets, and swept a lawn

until the world awoke at dawn

to find that simply everywhere

was woven with entangled hair.

Whether this one night had got

stretched and stretched an awful lot

like the wizard’s beard, who knows,

I'll only say, as people rose

they found their houses mummified

in whiskers, big grey knots were tied

round chimney stacks and office blocks

Up church towers hair stopped the clocks,

The beard had somehow explored Peru

whizzed up Everest and down each loo

yes, yours and mine, the President's and

The Pope’s, the Queen’s, across the land

The roads were clogged with frizzy grey

Children struggled to school that day

To find their classrooms stuffed. The hair

Had climbed school roofs and written there

In chalk on slates for all to see

a sum saying one plus one makes three

in enormous letters ten feet high!

At last there rose a babbling cry

Around the world in every tongue

to whom does this weird beard belong?

As if it heard each groaning curse,

Weird Beard’s pranks grew even worse

It’s poured Niagara down my sink!

Painted the Eiffel Tower bright pink!

It pulled down politician's breeches

as they made important speeches

like: the beard is out of hand

chop it up and clear the land!

The more they cut it the more it grew

Seen from space, the world once blue

In satellite pictures looked all dull:

a grey and grizzled ball of wool

The Weird Beard grew inquisitive

Wondering where else it might visit? If

Mars for instance would welcome hair

In the wild abundance beard had spare?

And so the whiskers entered space

Floating from earth’s fuzzy face

To join the stars like dot to dots

It tied the man in the moon in knots

Then wending bending to and fro

Wrapped up Venus in a bow.

Singeing slightly on the sun

It amiably went to search for fun

With comets, meteorites, asteroids

Throughout the Galaxy’s chilly voids

A bristly river nought could sever   

Flowing on perhaps, forever,

All this while on earth folk flailed

In frolicsome hordes of locks and wailed

Save us from this beard’s behaviour

who will be our planet’s saviour?

A little boy who lived in Clare

Wrote to the Taoiseach: I know where

A wizard lives – a wrinkly sage

Perhaps his spellbook has a page

On beard banishment – we could ask him

Well, you’ve guessed it, folk went gasping

up a hill to the wizard’s door

the Taoiseach knocked but only a snore

was heard within, for all this time

all throughout this entire rhyme

the wizard had slept – his whiskers growing

from his letterbox never slowing.

Seeing hair push through this slot  

The crowd, a quite suspicious lot,

Opened the door and went upstairs

A waterfall of silver hairs

And tiptoed in the Wizard’s room,

Then stood beside his bed to fume

The hairs that they’d been floundering in

Were sprouting from their saviour’s chin!

They shook the wizard, tugged his nose

Tickled under his arms and toes

Wakey wakey! Time to shave!

Your beard must learn one word: behave!

But nothing seemed to stir the Mage

Regardless of the people’s rage

Shouts they bellowed in his lugs

Poking fingers, oaths and tugs

He snored serenely – maybe still

He’s sleeping there upon his hill

Surrounded by frustrated mobs

In vain massaging bubbly blobs

Of shaving cream across his cheeks

They could be at it weeks and weeks

We’ll leave them to it – life’s too short

For beards and poems never ought

to grow to such an absurd degree,

on that I think we’ll all agree.