G is for Gus who fell into a moat

G is for Gus who fell into a moat
04/10/2008 - National Poetry Month post #12, part of The Unlucky Twenty-Six

Young Gus and his parents from southern Missouri
shoved their way out of the bus in a hurry.
The tour guide had said there was no need to worry,
but they tumbled out just like cockroaches scurry.

Gus was just seven but weighed one-oh-two,
and his mouth was ringed round with old lollipop goo,
and his hands were all thick with dried chocolate fondue,
and his shirt was stained through with a pink residue.

His parents behind him were nearly as bad.
His mom in a circus tent seemed to be clad,
and she filled out completely its barf-colored plaid.
But she looked quite petite when placed next to his dad.

They'd been on this tour now for nearly a week,
seeing castles and churches both grand and antique.
His mother had wanted to see Martinique,
but young Gus got his way when he started to shriek.

Today's castle was the old Keep on the Moor,
and they jostled and jiggled their way through the door,
and his mother took only one photo before
little Gus started screeching about the gift store.

So they bought him a snack just to shut up the brat,
and a little toy cannon, a woolen knit hat,
and a bright yellow "Marrow Moor Castle" cravat.
He gorged on his candy, and then that was that.

And that left them plenty of time to explore,
to see suits of armor and weapons of war,
and to spill Diet Pepsi all over the floor,
until Gus complained it was all just a bore.

The tour guide said they should go stand on the wall,
like the archers of old fighting off Duke Cornwall,
for the battlements rose so exceedingly tall,
on a clear day, they said, you could see Montreal.

So they sweat and they snorted up six flights of stair
til they exited into the afternoon's glare.
Gus's dad, between wheezes, simply had to declare
how decidedly awful it was to be there.

Then Gus, who was what you might call somewhat dim,
decided (as he always did) on a whim
to hoist himself up to the parapet's rim,
and nobody bothered to try to stop him.

And what happened next was all sort of a jumble:
Gus stood on the edge, and they heard a low rumble,
and the stonework beneath his feet started to crumble,
and down from the wall he proceeded to tumble.

He fell six full floors and splashed into the moat,
and there for a moment he bobbed up to float,
but the Marrow Moor Castle had no rescue boat,
so he sank to the bottom, and that's all she wrote.

One of my writing goals for 2008 is to write at least one light verse or poem every week in addition to my haiku wednesday and fiction friday posts. I will try to do this on Mondays.