One evening in the gloaming with the hour approaching late

I heard a sound, just ask my cat, he may corroborate.

I quickly went alfresco, thought I'd better take a look

A crowd of farmers gathered round to watch a donnybrook.

 

One farmer in pyjamas with a rubicund complexion,

Officious and unlaundered too, I thought, on close inspection,

Screamed words so execrable it made me hang my head

"Bugger off," I answered him, "You nasty slugabed"

 

He reddened more, demanding where I heard this sobriquet

“My bailiwick is language,” I began to say,

“I was just applying the accordant synecdoche;

Euphonious it was, especially if it gets your goat!”

 

The audience went bananas, with plaudit long and loud,

With swift volte-face I raised my hands to milk the cheering crowd

I bowed and swept an arm down low before a genuflect

My hubris was complete; I hadn’t known what to expect.

 

The ruddy man lunged forward to waylay me from behind

With fists clenched tight in anger and malfeasance on his mind

I heard “man on!” cried loudly by a sports aficionado

I spun around and held aloft my otiose red cardo!

 

My skill in diplomacy is something I misprise

So by some legerdemain I poked him in the eyes

He was implacable, impossible and vicious

And hence my disappearance was somewhat expeditious

 

My exile, I fear is from my own circumlocution

My life, although plenary has brought its retribution

My quandary as I hide out in a littoral bivouac

To change my life and limn a while or simply to head back