The Ballad Of Reading In Gaol Poem by The Royalist

For crimes of lust against his fellow man
Wilde had got his come-uppance
Celled sardined with varied beasts
His life was not worth tuppence
A lengthy stretch lay ahead
A lo-o-o-o-o-o–n-n-n-n-n-g sentence

With nothing to do and all day to do it in
Wilde read voraciously and ate gluttonously
To hit upon favour with the kitchen staff
He would wax lyrical flirtatiously
The chef would swoon and offer a pork pie
Won over by the poet’s vocabulary

Wilde watched the beasts’ pump iron
Evoking cavemen of the Silmarillion
This muscle could be put to use
Could he educate the rapscallion?
Completely drained by reading and eating
He lay on his fat and slept like a slubberdegullion

Woken by the draught of a windy fan
Wilde shouted “Arriba! Arriba! ”
After licking his spoon clean of all morsels
He handed it to his muscular cell mate succuba
The eureka moment was to spoon tunnel to freedom
And taste new fruits such as jabuticaba

The soup utensil Shawshank Redemption plan worked in earnest
Shifting platefuls of soil to make an abyss
The fit fleet-footed jailbird fled through the hole
Wilde bade shalom and leaped into the uterus
His bloated derrière stuck to the sides forming a bullseye
Easy pickings for the prison guard dog Cerberus