Science Capital
By John Irvine
© 2010 All rights reserved.
Ah, New Bedlam
science capital of…
where was that again?
No matter I love it here
the secret government research lab
looks after me
I have comfortable quarters
the climate’s great
gorgeous snow in winter
all the food I can eat
And if the locals
are a bit suspicious
belligerent and unfriendly
you can’t really blame them.
OK they spit at me
if they see me
cross their index fingers
I can take it
My job at the research lab pays well
did I say?
comfortable quarters
the climate’s great
gorgeous snow in winter
all the people I can eat
Pardon?
oh that’s my job
I eat people every Sabbath
they call it ‘behavioural research’
like how long can I exist solely
on a diet of hot moist raw meat
that I have to run down and kill myself
Hah
How long is forever?
They’ve just opened my cage
from behind their reinforced glass window
and I’m a bit peckish
been six days you know.
Now do I have everything I need
hands teeth tongue feet Biro
Now it’s down to Bedlam Square,
it’s time to take the midnight air
and seek a fellow human there
in spite of their defiance.
Although they fear my weekly kill,
they come, every Jack and Jill,
their destinies I will fulfil,
and all in the name of science.
John Irvine lived in Australia for 28 years, drifting about like a cryptococcus spore on the breeze, and is now resident in Colville, New Zealand, on the Coromandel Peninsula with his poet/writer wife Maureen. There he finds room to let his dark side out to play.
