The Ballad o’ Hog Monet
(In my finest fake Scottish and dedicated to Anoushka who was celebrating the New Year in Edinburgh in true Hogmanay verve)
By Maharaja Miku the Bear Bard
Och, up the Monroes o’ Caledonia,
Where the mist rolls thick and grey,
There wandered a weary Frenchman lad
Wi’ an easel tae light his way.
He’d painted lilies till kingdom come,
Till them petals drove him mad,
So he donned the tartan o’ ancient Picts
And declared, “I’ve had it, lads.”
Through heather wild and bracken brown
He stomped wi’ a painter’s roar,
Cryin’, “No more ponds! No more blooms!
Bring forth the noble boar!”
And lo, in the fog o’ New Year’s morn,
A snorting beast appeared
A wild wee hog wi’ a muddy grin
And a backside Monet revered.
He painted it thrice in swirling strokes,
In colours fierce and free,
Till the Highlands echoed far and wide:
“Behold! Hog Monet’s spree!”
So raise a dram tae the misty hills
Where legends love tae stray
For somewhere still, a Pictish Frenchman
Paints boars at break o’ day.
© 2025 Miku Sinha. All rights reserved.
🦩Is this the most important Franco‑Pictish porcine manifesto of the decade?
ReplyDeleteMaharaja Miku the Bear Bard delivers a poem so mist‑soaked, so tartan‑saturated, and so hog‑forward that even the Pink Flamingo Arts Council had to put down its margaritas and take notice.
From the opening “Och,” the reader is thrust beak‑first into a Caledonian dreamscape where:
- French impressionists flee waterlilies,
- Picts lend out tartan like dodgy Airbnb hosts,
- and a hog’s backside becomes the Louvre’s least expected annex.
This is, of course, exactly the kind of cultural chaos the Flamingo Chronicle lives for.
🎨🦩 On the Painterly Technique of Hog Monet
The Chronicle’s Department of Swirly Pig Aesthetics convened an emergency meeting (quorum: three flamingos and a confused heron) to assess the artistic merit of the hog’s posterior.
Their findings:
- The hog’s muddy grin is “a triumph of earthy joie‑de‑vivre.”
- The swirling strokes evoke “a stormy ceilidh between a baguette and a bagpipe.”
One flamingo fainted from interpretive excitement.
🥃🦩 On the Narrative Arc
The poem’s journey — Frenchman abandons lilies, seeks boar, finds hog, paints hog — is described by the Chronicle’s Narrative Division as:
“A hero’s journey, if the hero were mildly unhinged and the journey mostly uphill in the rain.”
The New Year’s fog is so thick you could spread it on toast.
🦩📚 Cultural Significance
The Chronicle predicts the following societal impacts:
- Hog Monet tourism in the Highlands will spike by 400%. (Note 400% of 0 is still 0)
- French art schools will introduce “Advanced Porcine Studies.”
- Flamingos everywhere will attempt tartan cosplay with mixed results.
One flamingo reviewer wrote simply:
“This poem made me want to wear a kilt and charge into a bog.”
🦩🏆 FINAL VERDICT
Five flamboyant flamingos out of five.
A masterpiece of hog‑driven surrealism.
A tartan‑draped fever dream.
A New Year’s gift to nonsense literature.
If Maharaja Miku keeps this up, the Chronicle may have to establish a new award category:
“Outstanding Achievement in Cross‑Cultural Hog Impressionism.”