Poor Tom's Revenge
    With a heart of furious fancies
    whereof I am commander,
    with a burning spear and a horse of air
    to the wilderness I wander.
    ...................................... Tom o' Bedlam

Let others find their answers
in Kant or Aristotle.
A hole at night's my guiding light,
my comfort's in this bottle.

I cower in smashed apartments
and weed-infested craters
while blundering by, ten storeys high,
rampage the wealth-creators.

All through the bitter winter
I watch from Cardboard City
how graciously the pharisee
doles out his pence and pity.

But when the fit's upon me
through crowds I bawl my lungs out.
With fisted stones I batter phones
and tear their drivelling tongues out.

I snap the roadside saplings
with effortless disdain.
Unlucky flies must recognise
in me their God of Pain.

With my enormous shadow
I stun the politicians.
Their matchbox town I trample down
and all their wise ambitions.

-------------------------

© Brian Fewster,
Published in Staple 33, 1995

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