世界雙關語遊行日

Short of poetic inspiration lately, Mark Caltonhill apologized for only having “light verse” to offer this month.
He read his most recent composition, “The Day My Legs Turned to Lettuce,” based on a dream in which he was chased down the street by a flock of sheep; followed by two earlier Chinese-language humorous poems: “你很像我的狗” (You Remind Me of My Dog) and “阿兜仔都住天母” (ALL foreigners live in Tianmu).

“…my apologies for the rhymes; if i had chosen the topic, my legs could have been some nice rhymable thing like beans or leeks or … but lettuces they were

also, apparently “peckish” means something completely different in US English; in British English it means “slightly hungry”

enough! here’s the poem:

The Day My Legs Turned to Lettuce

One day, I woke to find my legs had turned to lettuce,
completely green, from my toes up to my … belt-ish,
well, that was no problem as I was feeling peckish,
so I simply showered in vinaigrette and ate green salad for my breakfast.

I opened a self-grown self-serve vegan restaurant,
serving hippies from Lisboa to Sebastapol,
and I also raised packs of long-haired rabbits,
from which I took wool and made alpaca jackets.

I had to take care, though, when going out of doors,
or I’d be chased by herds of herbivores,
by cows and sheep and other animals,
as well, of course, by those damned hippy cannibals.

[CHORUS] One day, I woke to find my legs had turned to lettuce
well, there was no problem when I was feeling peckish,
so long as I did not succumb to that habitual menace,
of ending up as food in caterpillars’ bellies.

A polite Polish policeman once doffed his hat,
as a leder-hosened German enquired “Kaufs du kopfsalat?”,
meanwhile a salad-mad French artist named Toulouse,
screamed at me “Je voudrais manger your bloody let-ouse.”

[Chorus] One day, I woke to find my legs had turned to lettuce,
well, there was no problem when friends were feeling peckish,
of course, come winter, things could get quite hellish,
as only Russians still eat salad when the weather’s wettish.

With my lettuce ankles and lettuce knees,
I needed to hide my legs from ravenous Cantonese,
from chopstick-wielding Japanese politely saying “itadakimasu”,
and cabbage-missing Koreans hoping to make their kimchi at last.

[Chorus] One day, I woke to find my legs had turned to lettuce,
well, there was no problem if I was feeling peckish,
and some day, I know I’ll find true love, perhaps in Venice
from a dirty-minded Italian with a green-foot fetish.

Maybe I should look for love within my kingdom,
for someone with baby-corn fingers with no ring on,
or whose own legs are slender asparagus spears,
but preferably who does not have cauliflower ears.

Sometimes I hide my legs when I go on a date,
elsetimes, I just lean back and spread them on a plate,
nonchalantly saying to my sweetie,
“Darlin’, if you’re hungry, you go ahead and eat me.”

[Chorus] Well, that’s all to tell about when my legs turned to lettuce
completely green, from my toes up to my … belt-ish,
my story’s done, there’s no more to embellish,
unless, of course, it’s you who now feels peckish.
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