Poem: Collective Nouns And Crime.
Collective Nouns And Crime.
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‘Who burgled a business of flies’?
Asked a murmuration of starlings.
‘Who stole a parcel of penguins,
Wrapped in a rag of colts
And tied with a string of ponies’?
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‘A murder of crows did it
With an ambush of tigers as cover’,
Lied a storytelling of crows.
But they were told to stop fibbing
And be silent as a bed of clams.
.
‘This is a fine kettle of hawks’
Said a parliament of owls
Sitting in a building of rooks,
With a fine tower of giraffes
Behind a high hedge of heron.
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‘We must ask a shrewdness of apes
To unwrap such a knot of toads.
For we have no idea of the culprit,
Though we were all fee-paying pupils
At a top public school of dolphins’.
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But soon the crime was solved
By a clever sleuth of bears,
Who were presented with a bouquet of pheasants,
While a rhumba of rattlesnakes danced
To the music of a band of gorillas.
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The crime had been committed
By a cowardice of curs
Aided by a criminal skulk of foxes.
Cleverly tracked by bears, following a litter of pigs
That led straight to their hiding place.
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‘We could cut off all your heads
With a sord of mallards’, the criminals were told,
‘But we have been persuaded to clemency
By a lamentation of swans
And a pitying of turtledoves.’
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‘Your fate has now been carefully decided,
Upon the random choice of a card
Drawn blindly from a pack of dogs.
Your punishment shall be duly delivered
By a really hard smack of jellyfish.’
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