Ballad Of Matthew Hennyfink Corbett

I got mugged off like a kipper,
guilttripped into the family business. 
I thought it'd be a cushti gig 
if the Corbetts made the B-list,

but in this racket, Pa was neither 
Ron or Reg of puppet-masters.
And when it came to ventriloquism, 
he was a glucking gigaster.

Giraffe's on me, who let slide 
the O-level in Comic Genius ,
coz Pa snorted, "Ooo-lardi-dah!"
at the college prospectus.

It was Pa that dragged us 
down tho', what with his bete noir,
which was ursine and started off orange
until our hard life faded its fur.

Like all motormouth matyrs, 
Pa got off on being flogged. 
for what Pa loved to hate the most
was his dead horse boss. 

But he could always pull my heart-strings,
throw my voice some way off.
He was his own worst pigheaded mark, 
but Pa would tell it like it was:
 
"That little yellow bear with the black ears 
coulda been a cashcow, but there's 
a snag: it's not golden boy 
Christopher Robin's, it's ours!
 
Yeah, that little yellow bear with black ears 
shoulda been a goldmine, but we've hit
a hitch: can't fill Oil Drum Palais, 
even when Henson's on a drip 

and Oz is on the kermit,
(too Tom 'n' Dick to be on the frog).
Coz custard cub's the worst rhubarber,
mute marigold albatross!

But what really clinged like Kitten 
Kong on MY thruppenny bits 
wasn't the bear, but that moth-munched 
mitten mongrel's squeaky lip. 

O Sweep the Freak kept givin' me 
sax-reed stridor verbal,
tho' both barrels of his ire were 
equally indecipherable.

Brass tacks is Pa'd fob me off 
with some old pony, some old chat:
'Matty, like Chaz Chaplin 
and his Black Jack o' a lip-thatch 

- I mean the penny chew 
sable as a feiker-boy's sobs, 
not '21' at Esmerelda's Barn, 
where first you lose your sovs,

then your kneecaps - but, Matty,   
your alphonsey face-fungus 
shall be British icon as full 
and red as rush hour Uncle Gus!"

But my strange went widely untugged
by squirts of the 1980s,
tho' they still bloomed into the bloomin' 
smears, when bigger nobody in the noughties.

But Pa could always pull my heart-strings,
throw my voice some way off.
And tho' his own worst pessimasochist,
Pa really told it like it was:
 
"The little yellow bear with the black ears 
coulda been a cashcow,  but there's 
a snag: he's not Texas Pete's 
nemesis, he's ours!

Yeah, the little yellow bear with black ears 
shoulda been a goldmine, but we're in  
a bit of Harvey, and he ain't no
talking Teddy Ruxpin!

E' won't izzy-wizzy up no wonga!'
Over his bugbear bear, Pa lost sleep. 
But what really hairsprayed my hackles 
was that squeakbox psycho Sweep 

(maybe the mitten mutt rumbled
that I didn't wanna do 'Wogan'
with a grey cherry's arras
on the end of mi left German).

I remember when Pa pirated 
the soundcheck then bounced the goose's 
for bird who read Soo so 
milfily, I had to make my excuses.  
 
Pa sneered and then confided 
that "Wimmin don't fit like a T,
not like a glovely puppet. Ah,
a sock made a man of me!

Coz, son, love's like puppetry 
- it's better with no strings!
Ahem, now get me Thames or Granada,
hard sell how now the panda sings."

Then back at that little yellow  bear, 
another butcher's he took bedevilled.
I feared the bear had sent 'im
flipping Radio Rental!  

Th'umpteen detective nuzzles, his 
beak's hex-scenting daily swink.
Nose pease pudding on the puppet 
where Pa sought out the pen 'n' ink 

of little yellow bear with the black ears,
- shuddabeena CASHCOW, but there's
a snag: it weren't Pixar's or Theodore 
R's. Frayed? Threadbare? He's ours! 

Yeah, little yellow bear with the black ears 
shuddabeena soddin' GOLDMINE! 
But he weren't from  Hasbro or Mattel,
so let's recall whole Corbett product line!

But Pa really twanged my heart-strings,
threw my voice a long, long way off,
when he raspily relayed th'it  was terminal: 
he dint 'ave long left.

Static in spades the little yellow 
bear gave Pa to his pauper's grave.
However, since the old man's been brown 
bread, the silver lining's plain: 

I ain't 'eard so much as a peep from Sweep, 
not one impudent whoopee-cushion 
leak of an insolent squeak. Too sweet   
the reaper my bittersweet conclusion.

Orphaned, retired one-man-show
now, yet tho' his gripin' gob's gone,
some nights I swear I  hear 
a phantom grousin' - Pa's Hobson's

cuts dead my heartstrings 
like thread 'n' thrum whims o' Clotho.
To stringiest string of hypertension 
my ticker's tether's strained, so

tachycardially taut at 
ticker-splitting realisation
that the bickerin's due rekindling, 
Or is it an hallucination
 
his hard-done-by hang-up's back?
But not like how long dark lullaby
of Lazarus was nullified, nope,
Pa's embittered punditry, 

sour chat's reinhashed
as revenant rant, ghost in the gob
of a certain hitherto mute 
little yellow albatross.

As if muzz-stiches of quiet cub
were poltergeistically unravelled
by dead spoilt brat too spoiled to die,
Pa finally set free Sooty's snarl:

"O my favourite only currant,
I know puppeteer's a muppet's job,   
when our menagerie of mittens
are blind to beauty of an honest bob. 

But, Matty Boy, don't disown our
curveball Corbett kizmet's  plan
to confuse cashcows and dead horses
- O go load up that Sooty van! 

Son, endorse a common curse,
follow in my folly, for a pair 
of pear-shaped careers 
squashes the odds it was the bear

to blame, which shields your old dad's 
legacy from the living's slurs ,
from the booing biros 
and retroussé shonkers

of showbiz hacks from the local rag,
and town fete impresarios
who've tied up a sweetheart deal
with mayoral Masonic bow.

And two-faced pantomime dames,
who don't return your calls, 
but moonlight with ambivalent little folk
soon as there's moonlit murmur of snowfall.

And the clown cartel, who slice 
up the birthday party circuit 
like Victoria sponge, then lock it down
with balloon meercats for lookouts.
 
And the redcoats whose last resort 
is a purgatorial variety-show 
- you might spot Bodmin Bigfoot 
there, but talent scouts don't go!

All my fellow 27th-letter-
of-the-alphabet-listers, 
all the sharkfin-elbowed
and rope-donating second-stringers

gonna find their brickbats at 
a deadman's act deflected, 
eat their words that your Ol' Pa's 
obscurity was purely self-inflicted. 

Like their material, all them gimcrack 
wisecracks no-one waited until after 
the wake to crack will seem so dated , 
once the son and the father

seem brothers of a mute malediction,
by same little yellow bane twinned, 
then no-win sitch becomes split shame 
of longsuffering Sooty-floggin'!' 

But with a fullygrownman's growl,
I growled "Uh-uh, Pa!" at the bear 
(whose disrepair was a proxy mange), 
"I'm not drivin' Mr.Sooty anywhere! 

Coz what I learnt from you, Pa,
is that the last word's a pyrrhic bugger. 
And the other thing I learnt from you
is that both a son and his poppa 

long to be the last word hog.
I don't wanna die anywhere near the 
public eye, with my cold dead arm 
up little yellow bear's or diva panda's

or dogtoy-tongued dog's ARSE!"
Thus Cor-bete jaune Pa had worn
when he stroked his own yellerbelly 
was forever to ursine aphony scorned.
 
Lippy spirit of hydra-crusted
chip on 'is shoulder to new limbo
with no cabaret 'ad  'opped it! But not before, 
loud as the great bell of Bow,

Pa's haunting jawjaw won final dicky,
when possessed Sooty laughed last:
"Son, you'll always be my puppet,
for every man’s puppetmaster is his past..."