Hungry Gnome

On a tussock
In the glades of evenstar
Sat a green-faced garden gnome
In a crimson cassock.

Snow was falling
On the lodestone land afar,
Limpid shone moon's glimmer-loam,
Glint-eyed owls were calling.

"Time now", said
To himself our beardy friend
"To nip away a magic night with some
Sweetmeat morsel: sugar bread

Of heaven". He
Pulled from his crimson pocket's end
With dragon-fury rumbling in his tum,
A piece of Christmas pie.

But in a trice,
Gossamer-wings a-flying,
Sat down a crystal Christmas fairy-mum,
Speaking sage advice:

"Watch your weight!
"What do you think you're doing?
"Normal gnomes have certain forms. But your bum:
"'Tis no more size eight."

Brow downcast
Yet the greedy wight feasts on;
And as his garden-maw begins to foam
He still can't eat his pie too fast.

And as he fattens
The tussock squattens
And Christmas crimson cassocks burst their buttons,
And fairies, even fairy-mums, will - sighing - hum
"What shall we do with gluttons?"