“It’s raining cats and frogs!”

The British invasion of ancient Egypt
brought unexpected plagues

Mummies mumbled ‘”mummy”
as tartaned pharaohs took tea
with Amon Elisabeth, The Sun Goddess

“Once bitten, twice a snake”, she told Cleopatra
“Do unto onto your House of Commons
as you would have them do unto you”

“Don’t put all your scarabs in one basket”
Nefertiti mimed, “they’ll make you pay through my nose
“Take my advice, never waste perfect sandstorm”

“I have bigger crocodiles to fry”
She let the cat out of the canopic jar
And put this colonialist dream on ice

Hieroglyphs with stiff upper lips?
We’ll cross that sphinx when we find it

Poem caused by this prompt at napowrimo.net:

Our (optional) prompt for the day asks you to engage with different languages and cultures through the lens of proverbs and idiomatic phrases.