When walking from one town to another, we encounter several animals, each giving a warning about ‘going to Grindip’. Despite these warnings, we continue on to Grindip, unaware that the name is not that of a town, but of a scary monster.
GOING TO GRINDIP By Michele Lourie c 2018
I walked along the dusty road
Singing a pretty ditty
When out from behind a flowering bush
Sprang a multi-coloured Kitty
WHO MEWED
‘Do you go to Grindip?
Then listen to my advice
Turn around and go back home
Don’t think about it twice’.
I continued on in puzzled thought
To reach a little rise
Where stood a dog, barring the road
With menace in his eyes
HE BARKED
‘Are you heading to Grindip?
Then hearken to what I say
It’s the silliest thing you could ever do
Just walk the other way.’
At slower pace, my steps I took
Not straying from my course
When ‘round the corner, at a trot
Came a palomino horse
HE NEIGHED
‘So, you’re on the road to Grindip?
Nay! Please just think it through
You don’t know what you’ll find there
It’s the worst thing you could do’.
Then right behind him came a roar
A mighty ‘GRINDIPBOO’
Then a wind that blew me off my feet
And splattered me with goo
IT SLAVERED
‘Are you coming to Grindip?’
Cried a voice that shook the ground
And a monster with green teeth and claws
Came towards me at a bound.
‘Do say you’re coming to Grindip’
Wheedled this scary sight
‘Then you can join me for high tea
And you really must stay the night’
I SHOUTED
I was on my way to Grindip
But find I’m in a bind
The sight of you with your drooling lips
Has made me change my mind.
AND I RAN, AND I RAN, AND I RAN AWAY
SO THAT’S WHY I’M NOT INSIDE GRINDIP TODAY.
