This tragic tale of death and woe
Is the saddest story that I know:
How servant’s heart was broke in two,
No will to live, nothing to do,
And so he set out to the street,
Walking slow and dragging his feet,
Eyes to the floor and body slumped,
And all the lampposts that he bumped
Seemed to hit him particularly hard,
Kicking through his lowered guard.

Tearfully, servant trudged along,
(His name was Tall-and, Tall-and-Strong),
Yet on this day he seemed so weak
And with a scowl he would not speak
To any person he would meet
And for his dinner, would not eat.

Is it not so sad as when a man
Is stuck in grief, no longer can
Find his way through a jagged life
But feels constrained within its strife?
Is it not sad when people fall,
Their life collapsing like a wall.
Will it ever, ever end?
Is there something we could do?
No there isn’t, so I say:
So I’ve always found this true.

Many years on, the servant stood:
Finally he understood
The meaning of his goldfish’s fate:
“Now I see, it’s not too late
For me to start my life once more.
Just as Eric’s corpse lay on the fish tank floor,
I must lay my life to the sun
To strip my clothes now, every one
And run around, then round again,
(If arrested, I’ll just plead insane!)
Eric’s dead - yes him, not me!
Now I see! I see! I see!
I’ve escaped now, I am free!”
So he climbed the nearest tree
At the roadside, a stately oak.
He lit some leaves and had a smoke
But the smoke was strong, went to his head.
He fell off his branch, twenty feet, then was dead.

His body lay on the road below,
As winter came was covered in snow,
Then by the spring had rotted away
Into the tarmac, into the clay.
His life had been sad, his death was rotten,
But within weeks, he’d been forgotten.


© 2000 Matt Everett