Hungry Gnome

On a tussock

In the glades of evenstar

Sat a green-faced garden gnome

In a crimson cassock.



Snow was falling

On the lodestone land afar,

Limpid shone moon's glimmer-loam,

Glint-eyed owls were calling.

"Time now", said

To himself our beardy friend

"To nip away a magic night with some

Sweetmeat morsel: sugar bread

Of heaven". He

Pulled from his crimson pocket's end

With dragon-fury rumbling in his tum,

A piece of Christmas pie.
 
But in a trice,

Gossamer-wings a-flying,

Sat down a crystal Christmas fairy-mum,

Speaking sage advice:

"Watch your weight!

"What do you think you're doing?

"Normal gnomes have certain forms.
But your bum:
 "'Tis no more size eight!”

Brow downcast

Yet the greedy wight feasts on;
And as his garden-maw begins to foam

He still can't eat his pie too fast.

And as he fattens

The tussock squattens

And Christmas crimson cassocks burst their buttons,

And fairies, even fairy-mums, will - sighing - hum

"What shall we do with gluttons?"