"Hey, buddy," says a huge, taupe bear, holding out a red charity bucket,
coin rattling, dancing a jig on Hammersmith Broadway. "Hey, buddy."
You are Icee ice and icily ignore an anthropomorphic ursine's likely
fraudulent plea, you got Merwin to peruse and tea, back at the flat.
Later, amidsips, lost in a Merlin bit of blue bear-ed damsel, bad noise,
woodscream, the Broadway bear breaches your door with a crowbar.
You flinch, the bear advances in, throws its crowbar at your bookshelf;
the vibe is all too like a good bit of a bad George R. R. Martin novel.
Bear stands still, you start shouting; in reply to your order for sense,
it goes "Hey, buddy, hey buddy, hey buddy, hey buddy, hey, hey buddy,"
Chanting, "Hey, buddy, hey buddy, hey, hey buddy," it shuffles forward
You draw your mobile and tap, tap, tap The Filth. Bad bear bats it away.
"Hey, buddy," its knee crashes into your gut, reeling pain and stars,
Massive paws spin you round, grab the scruff of your neck, and push,
Your head under the dishwashing waters of your kitchen sink.
This is murder as performance art, flattering, being involved, the piece
Your lungs breathe longingly the soapwater grease, drowning in relief,
You have nothing to be embarrassed about.
The Christian soldier plays his drone in lazy, closing circles
Over the wedding of a known and suspected bomb maker's cousin
Michael drinks displays, for in all creation His magic judgment dwells
Kid's violinist hand, a sinew twitch, millisecond after optimum
But it's good enough at apogee
As his namesake angel cast Lucifer's legions from the stars,
So he makes the party breath His fire, covers them with their own walls
Jericho! Jericho! Hallelujah!
Drone on with your hymns, young man
The boy's Shaman recites approbation throughout snarled grey matter
Positron Emission Tomography lit up, like a Christmas tree
Everybody always loves hearing the story of cousin Ritchie at the Zoo,
As we, a tribe united, sit again at seasonal, holiday board,
Of how Ritchie ran, tripped and chipped a tooth,
After that lion roared,
I roar,
I act out the kids up-thrown arms, imitate his absent soprano scream,
Of course we leave out the part about him pissing his pants,
Because the leukemia got the better of him, 3 (or 4?) summers back,
After they laugh, and I say 'ahhh, Ritchie,' we sit in silence,
They pretending it's quiet communion,
While I know they're all lost in their own heads,
One of them, at length, clears their throat and busts up my necromancy,
And then their gravy tastes even better.
Joseph Robert detests poems about orchards and racists, not poems about racists, but actual racists. He is 190 centimetres tall, is a firm believer that the Guinness in Dublin is the best due to the rats in the vats, and drinks Bushmills whisky. He likes visiting orchards when the fruit is ripe.
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