Cassowary

(i)

"What have you got in there, a cassowary?"
Mr Schlong (my physics teacher) asked me,
Pointing behind me at my locker.
He was one suspicious motherfocker.
Why would the fellow ask me such a thing?
It was true that there'd been a spate of pinching
From lockers, causing boys to take measures
To guard their fags, packed lunches, secret treasures.
Marcus Manlius installed feisty geese,
Enraging the RSPB and police
But where would I get a cassowary?
This was Duffield, not tropical New Guinea.
Hearing muffled cries, Schlong lost his reason
Like a physics hog in the truffle season.
He advanced on the locker, lock pick in hand.
I screamed "No, you fool! You don't understand!"
He unlocked it just like a master cracksman
Crossed with a gloating Jeremy Paxman.
He threw back the door but to his surprise
There was nothing there. He rubbed at his eyes,
Stuck his head inside. How had he been tricked?
Now he spends eternity being kicked
By the cassowary beyond the veil,
Each toe fitted with a murderous nail.
Schlong got sucked out of time; we heard his cry
As his body was drawn through the needle's eye
Geeks, freaks and cool kids joined in a chorus:
"This is the dawn of the Aeon of Horus."
If that had been how the story had ended
Then, all in all, it would have been splendid.

(ii)

But supply staff rode in on demon beagles.
Pandora's locker stood open and its evils
Spread wide. The prince's snakes uncoiled.
Quetzalcoatl took to the sky.
The mountains crumbled, the seas boiled.
Men ate lard and drank Crisp 'n Dry
Or on beaches of powdered glass,
They picked at bones left by the tide
Whilst kids in museums cried en masse
At unicorns in formaldehyde
But they were never so blue,
They did not feel such dejection,
As those poor children made to sit through
The beheading of One Direction.
Huge tattooed guys with big blue arms
Raced their pet swans, smoked crack from skulls,
Hung depressed cows in empty barns.
Mutant pasties swooped for seagulls.
Many women were sent blind
By visions of Stephen Hendrys.
Those not afflicted lost their minds
When glimpsing The Goat of Mendes
Licking his private parts...
                                           Sorry about that
But each man has the right to protect his Kit Kat.

B.R. 27/01/2013