Flat Badger

Cherry

By fatboy74

Mon, 25 Feb 2013
  • 5088 reads
16 comments
 

Another flat badger on the way to work,
the insides spewed across both lanes.
With the snow it might have been the
slaughter of the innocents, or a rare 12” sleeve,
some comment on Thatcher and pit closure,
track 6 the song before played backwards,
creative destiny stifled in the corporate machine...
or something like that - I've got nothing -
I drive around, look after kids, watch repeats
of Stewart Lee rants on Dave or Dave +1.

At work I say little of dead badgers.
In the meetings they make talk noise and joke noise,
then there's bits of paper for everyone;
but that's the tragedy of the badger,
the monochrome, its snuffly pink nose,
the relaxed stroll across busy highways,
tiny cubs left to starve in a cruel winter
because this is a poem
and that's how i'm feeling
and in poems everyone suffers.

On the way home the hint of a jolt,
it's dark and late and memory is shot,
smiling at the people, going to different rooms,
and all the meetings, the bits of paper,
and I know I’ve just crushed its skull,
spread its brains for the happy crows,
laid suicide supper for the loveable fox -
but there's beer at home and people I love,
and no matter how much I want to see
a live badger one happy-glorious day,
that's all I can think about right now.

Certificate PG
Nature

Comments

Submitted by MS on
i think all of us can relate to the squashed and the squashee at times. Great poem Fatboy even if a large mammal had to die for it.

 

Submitted by seashore on
Yes ditto to comments by MS - despite being a bit close to home (my daughter's cat got run over a few weeks back) still a great poem. There, it's not all about prose - a medium that totally defeats me.

Submitted by fatboy74 on
Thanks for reading chaps I really appreciate it. It would be nice to see a live badger one day, I think they have stolen them all for that springwatch.

 

Submitted by Syphon on
Enjoyed this FB agree some very good lines in this, Badgers are classed as an endangered species unless you count the ones on the road! Cheers S

Submitted by fatboy74 on
Cheers, syphon much appreciated mate. :)

 

Submitted by coolibah on
I read this with a more metaphorical extension of the ol flat Badger in mind. Groundhog Days, as a title, might further my/our intent in regards to a certain plague of all man-kind, eh? enjoyed

Submitted by skinner_jennifer on
I love this poem FB. It's such a shame that Badgers are shy creatures, and we never get the pleasure of seeing them, inless they are road kill. But one things for sure, your poem gave me pleasure to read. Much enjoyed. Jenny.

 

Submitted by fatboy74 on
Bear, Coolibah and Jenny thanks so much for finding this and commenting much appreciated. Hi praise indeed bear thanks mate. Quite right coolibah, I was looking for a job and then I found a job and heaven knows... Jenny, I am sure one day I'll see a live one. Hope you are keeping well and great to hear from you. :)

 

Submitted by scratch on
I'm late to this one. But never mind eh? Poetry needs to be said or heard or both at the same time and this one's an example of that to be sure. You've captured the grinding superficiality of everything in this one. And how casually, with ease even the very important things can be ignored at the expense of the really irrelevant. Lovely.

 

Submitted by fatboy74 on
hey, late or early your comments are always a pleasure to find. Cheers mate an excellent reading of it.

 

Submitted by tcook on
A great poem - and come down here for badgers. I see on average five or six every time I motor down the lanes at night. There's far too many of them! But I must admit that I can't bring myself to deliberately run them over. The one that digs up my garden every night though - he's a different matter.

Submitted by fatboy74 on
Sorry Tony I've been away, many thanks for reading and appreciate the feedback. Yes, it's one of those oddities - I remember as a child with my class sitting outside a set and waiting for hours for one to appear and it never did. It sounds like you are tripping over the blighters, hard not to squash them. atb.

 

Submitted by VeraClark on
This has knocked me over. Power to the badger. Need to read your stuff. Really well written and broke my heart slightly.

 

Submitted by fatboy74 on
I think it's about time i read your stuff! You've been kind enough to read all my old bollocks. Power to the badger and to cold beer.

 

Submitted by Di_Hard on

Where you jolt from boring black and white of papers at meetings to the black and white of badgers, and then sheer off into emotion and thinking about what it left behind, is powerful. Even as you are longing to get back to your own life as opposed to worklife? Suicide supper is excellent. Horrible also.

My only experience of live badgers is when the hens  woke me up in the night. I thought it must be a fox. I went out, there was a bright moon as the sky was clear, it had not rained for ages. The henhouse was rocking and slamming. I opened one side and thought there was a bear in the darkness, slamming against the sides. I was scared. Most of the birds were dead. I didn't know what to do to help the ones still alive so left the henhouse open and went back indoors. Those that were still alive died of shock the next day. It only took two. We rang up the RSPCA to ask what it could have been and they said badger, that it was because of the drought they could not get enough worms and stuff out of the ground. So I always think of badgers as a bit scary. But was shocked to hear how much farmers seem to hate them, even before the TB thing, just because of their setts which if they build them in fields collapse when tractors go over them. It's like we want to get rid of the wild even now. Nothing can stand between making money

 

Submitted by fatboy74 on

You are very kind reading my stuff Di, I think your wonderful description of your experience with badgers would make a cracking story or poem (if it hasn't already!)