Clanger! (I.P.)

Clanger, the dog, had only one eye,
but a tail that incessantly wagged,
his ears kind of short, though his body was long,
and made out of old baked-bean cans.

He sometimes got lonely, and longed for a mate,
but his back legs were fashioned from spatulas,
and he had no illusions – accepted his fate;
there were worst things than being a bachelor.

And so in the garden through rain and through shine,
his head bibbed and bobbed with the wind,
on account of the fact that fixed to his back
was a cruddy old bicycle spring.

A blackbird whooshed down to the garden one day,
and perched on the end of his nose, which was
one of the knobs off an old chest-of-drawers
where the man in the house kept his clothes.

Clanger was chuffed as a dog with two tails,
and asked would the bird be his friend?
“You have to be joshing! You can’t even bark,”
chirped the blackbird, “Where will it all end!?”

Clanger was sad, and he felt quite depressed
as a teardrop plopped onto the ground;
it wasn’t his fault he was born with no bark,
and instead made a clink-clanking sound.

The man of the house was a farmer, of sorts,
kept cockerels and hens in a coop,
and round about midnight, a fox on the prowl
in the garden just happened to snoop.

A storm it was brewing, and wind stirred the trees,
and ravaged the rickety gate; the chickens
they quaked at the sight of the fox,
whilst he relished the nosh they might make!

Clanger, the dog, had only one eye,
but could see what the fox was about,
so he clinked and he clanked with all of his might
till the farmer came rushing on out.

The fox saw the farmer – was off like a shot,
and out of the garden did run, while the lightning
it zapped, and the thunder it crashed...
then, ‘crack’ went a two-barrelled gun!

Now Clanger, the dog, with only one eye,
who was fashioned from old baked-bean cans,
was spotted by ‘scouts’ and whacks drums with a clout
in the Bonzo-Dog-Doo-Dah Town Band.