Vermin Copyright © Richard Whiting 2010

Tried, found guilty, set for execution.
No witness, no jury, no hard evidence.
Whether you had bitten cows,
Coughed without due care
Or spat at them, is unclear.
It took me forty years or more
To see my first Badger;
Young, unconcerned, sifting the wholesome
From the unpalatable
Careless of my presence
His human hatred-gene
As yet vestigial.

The next, just a week later;
Fully grown, he slipped across the road
From out of the wheat field.
He stared at me. Bared his teeth
And hissed his best Badger obscenity
His human hatred-gene, mature.
He missed a trick.
He should have negotiated.
Me, I’d have taken his family in;
Built a sett in the attic
Disguised behind book-cases
False floors, trap-doors, the works.

Oh, one day we’d be found out;
Some tell-tale stink of Badger,
A careless word drifting through to
Your enemies at the Masonic Lodge.
Then the Coalition Storm-Troopers
Would break down my doors
For jeopardizing a farmer’s profit;
For making his brand new Audi
Rarer than a Badger’s hide.
You they’d take to some Hell’s Museum
To be gassed, stuffed or penned
Like the last vial of Smallpox.

Maybe one day they’d find
A small hand-written diary,
(Bound, perhaps in buckram)
Compiled by a cub
And lying on the attic floor.
Then, as best-seller, ‘A’-Level text
Tomorrow’s children will study
This country-wide cleansing,
This mammal genocide;

And decide for themselves
Who the true vermin are.