The Toadstool Man

He was known as the local Mycophagist

In the dales, the woods and the hills,

What happened was sad, for he wasn’t so bad

Just a tad underdone, Toby Gills,

They say that the cord was around his neck,

He was born with a carroty mop,

And a pale white head, he was almost dead

When the doctor had called out ‘Stop!’

 

They cut the cord and they let him breathe,

The damage was already done,

The blood had been stopped to his carroty top

So they said that he’d always be dumb.

But he found a niche where the fungi creeps

And went out collecting the spore,

In a year or two he knew more than you

And the college Professor next door.

 

He studied his mushrooms with loving intent,

He knew about hen of the woods,

He knew about bracket and shaggy manes, magic

And paddy straw, they were the goods;

He fostered his lobster and hedgehog and oyster

And coral fungi and stinkhorns,

But didn’t discern between fly agarics

And toadstools that grew in the lawn.

 

He grew his spore in a deep, dark cellar

And sold to the folk who came by,

And never would judge between Widow Weller

And the ordinary witches of Rye,

He’d sell death caps, and pigskin puffballs

Not thinking to question them why,

Or who would be eating his laughing Jim’s

And whether they knew they would die.

 

The air was thick and the air was damp

And he fell in the dark one day,

Scattering toadstools into the air

And their spores had floated away,

He breathed the spores right into his lungs

For he hadn’t been wearing a mask,

But sucked them in right over his tongue

And they came to his lungs, at last.

 

I happened to see him out in the street

He was finding it hard to breathe,

He could only take a couple of steps

Then sit on the kerb, to heave,

I tried to help but he waved me away

And his eyes were yellow and cruel,

Then I saw what he’d thrown up on the kerb

Some yellow and red toadstools.

 

The man was a walking toadstool spore

They were popping up out of his hair,

Pushing their way though his carroty top

In a bid to get to the air,

And his skin was blotched like a puffball, he

Looked up at me, and he cried,

As a giant toadstool grew from his throat

And he lay on his side, and died.

 

David Lewis Paget

Reviews

[Daniel Sala]

Stop doing this, you can't make people laugh before the first line is out, "it's not fair", especially with a word that shouldn't be funny! The precision of the words used, as ever adds to the quality, besides the rhymes, the metre (if that is the right concept) flows without a hitch, and the story is unfortunately for the protagonist very funny in a shouldn't be laughing way. A pleasure to read.

[Anand Sehgal]

A high class crazy write. Brilliant sarcastic colours :)

[Bob Sherunkle]

Incredible,.It amazes me how your imagination throws these to light.I'm not trying to be a kiss a***,but it's almost Grimm fairy tales.
Bloody brilliant.

[Marie]

THis is ghastly...I can just see that poor man lying there...covered with toatstools...