The Badger

Badger Allen Poe

The Badger

[First Published….er…never!]

Once upon a midnight foggy, while I pondered tired and groggy,
Over many a strange and twisted pattern in the lilo of the floor-
While I strained, nearly crapping, suddenly there came a rattling,
As of something fiercely battling, battling with my bathroom door,
“It’s just my flatmate”, I stuttered, “rattling at the bathroom door,
Only him and nothing more.”

Ah, vaguely I can remember it was in the warm September
And each flickering candle cast its shadow on the handle of the door
Patiently I awaited tomorrow; - because I had managed to borrow
Money for electric-ecstatic I will be able to watch E4,
Throw away these candles and get hot food in me once more;
Right now though I smell like a Labrador.

And the simple sad unsure shuffling of each Ben Sherman cufflink
Annoyed me – underjoyed me with a temper I had never felt before;
So that now, to calm the numbing in my temple, I started humming
“I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”
By U2, “I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”:
That’s all I knew and nothing more.

Rapidly my ire grew greater, why can’t the bastard wait ‘til later,
“Dude”, said I, “I’m mad, and really your patience I must implore;
But the truth is that I’m crapping, or I was ‘til you started rattling,
And so loudly you began battling, battling with the bathroom door,
I think ten doors down heard you” – and I flung wide open the door:
Pitch-blackness; not enough candles in the store.

Deep into the blackness looking, I began to say, “You fucking…”
Doubting, the dapper dude never ever dared disturb before;
But the silence just got louder, and the smell of talcum powder,
And the odd creak of the boards that made up the floor,
So I whispered, “I’ve got a knife…actually, make that four!”
As I trembled through to my core.

Back toward the throne I darted, hoping I had merely just farted,
Soon again I heard that rattling, a shitload louder than before.
“Surely”, said I, “surely man, you’re bent, and I’m increasing your rent.
Let me at you, then, so all sorts of pain you can explore;
Despite the shits I’ll use my fists, so all kinds of pain you can explore”
Wished I had wind and nothing more.

Opened the door with such angered vigour, and stopped still in stupid stupor,
In there came a vicious badger – from the Jabberwock-catcher’s hoard.
A hundred obeisances he made, within the first minute that he stayed
Scrambling everywhere with human hands instead of paws
Finally finding a place to perch with a bottle of Lynx beneath his claw;
Perched, and shat, and nothing more.

Then this charcoal vermin began to give me his crazy sermon
About getting so drunk you see vicious badgers, and alcohol seeps from your pores.
“Though thy shirt be stained with recycled dinner”, he said, “I feel there is a glimmer
Of hope for you, but you must do, what I tell you to, and go to the Wear’s shore:
But finish there first, I wouldn’t want you to burst, before we reach the shore,
Strain like never before.”

Much I strained despite the pain, as the insane badger spoke plainly,
With tones monotonous, repetitive, tedious – he was quite a bore;
For I cannot help but agree a brutal badger’s strange to see
Sitting waffling next to a bottle of J’Adore,
A badger with a temper next to my girlfriend’s J’Adore
She had wanted Christian Dior.

But the badger, sitting on the bath there, spoke only
Of sobriety, quite quietly, slightly violently he swore,
“You’re nothing but an idiot”, was his chosen idiom,
“A fucking loser, a user and a bloody abuser, and what’s more
You’re so inebriated that your mind’s created a creature of folklore
With human hands not paws”.

Startled at the toilet-water stillness, I realised I had no more illness,
No longer paddling up shit creek without an oar;
I tried to ignore him as I wiped, until in a flash and flush he swiped
At me with his phalanges, humanesque but for the claws,
Screaming, “You don’t want to start a human-badger war,
‘Cos I’ll break your friggin’ jaw”.

Well, I’m not going to take that crap from a glorified sewer rat
Straight I wheeled my arm around and knocked him to the floor.
As the toilet lid I shut, I turned and kicked him in the gut, but then he raised his foot
He connected with my balls and I began to fall, neutered and sore;
That little twat I hated, as I lay there castrated and sore
He just pointed to the door.

As my testicles were rising, I found it quite surprising
I was coming round to understanding, as I went to the landing through the door.
This barmy badger basically had badgered me beautifully,
Everything I had tried had failed, he could not be ignored
Or overlooked as his presence came with such splendour
This crossbred talking omnivore.

Then, methought, “Oh, what the hell, I’ll go with him and escape the smell,
And see what he wants to show me down by the shore.”
“Badger,” I said, “I won’t go to bed, but follow wherever I’m led,
To the streets or the beach, to my room or the moon or Asda superstore;
While we’re on our caper, remind me I need loo paper if we pass a superstore.”
I left in the jammies I wore.

“Wait,” said I, “weird woodland wonder, I need shoes before we go wander
Amongst the used condoms, and pipes and bongs that make up the shore.
Desolate deserted shoreline, dreary and dangerous even at daytime
We made our way past the closing-time taxi queue and gore;
Toward the stench of corpse and wee that reminds me of the clothing Grandma wore
When she was alive…before!

“Wait,” said I, “conniving carnivorous climber,” (Christ, Poe was a fantastic rhymer),
“What will we do when we reach the water?”, as the rain began to pour,
“Well,” said he, “I’ll be home, you can do what you want, alone
But be careful you aren’t robbed or killed or more”.
“Thanks for that you demonic twat,” I said, my balls still sore,
Quoth the badger, “Do you still have those knives, four?”

And the badger led me down, through the town, over waste ground
Past the tramps makeshift camps, slowly I lost the stomach cramps I’d had before;
And his eyes were all frustration, as I explained he was a figment of my imagination
Brought on by the excessive intake of dope and Aftershock and Coors
And my brain’s receptors are being deceptive; he left me like a whore,
Saying, “See you nevermore”.



M Foster