BEASTLY TALES

THE DRUNK

Oscar had not even a brass razoo,
He had to subsist on stringy bark stew.
No excitement for him, no razzle-dazzle,
Just everyday labour, worn to a frazzle.
If you consider this just to be razz matazz
Just stick around, hang out, and all that jazz.
Why was Oscar so impecunious?
Why was his situation so ruinous?
It was due to the fact that Oscar,
Spent much of his time, just plain blotto!
Yes, Oscar seemed to like his grog,
Walking around in a perpetual fog.
As is well known, wealth is hard to obtain,
If, all the time, one is peeing it down the drain.
Not only that, but who’d employ a drunk?
No-one, despite some myths you’d debunk.

Now governments make things hard for a drunk.
Every budget they hike the price by a chunk,
On booze in every, and any, form.
Eclipsing prices that used to be the norm.
Prices are predicated on alcohol content,
The higher that is, exponentially, up prices went.
Until spirit drinks are priced out of the market.
Whilst all other prices decidedly narket.
So poor Oscar, being a confirmed alcoholic,
Was surely in no position to frolic.
Can’t hold a job, and with a high cost habit,
An opportunity comes along you’ve got to grab it!

Oscar was offered a job digging holes.
In a cemetery, so they weren’t planting poles.
These were in the days before mechanical diggers.
Oscar-type labour came cheap, so it figures,
That manual labour would readily suffice,
Not too many funerals. Everything nice.
Oscar and his co-worker, dug a grave a day,
Unless more demand came their way.
Their measuring rod indicated six feet,
When this was reached they would beat a retreat.
To some shade under nearby trees,
And there they would sit, resting chins on knees.
One day, along came a gangster type,
“You boys, for extra money, look ripe”.
“How would you like to earn extra, don’t frown”,
“Just dig another two feet down,”
“Make it eight feet, instead of six,”
“And a nice little deal we can fix,”
“One hundred quid each, we’re not bluffing,”
“’Cos we have many bodies ready for stuffing”,
“Into those graves, before your real burial,”
“The real ones go above them, if you like aerial”
“Once we dump our gangster victims in,”
“You can shovel dirt over their grin.”
“Then, effectively, they no longer exist.”
“It’ll stop the coppers from being pissed.”

Now, Oscar and his friend were not slow learners.
They quickly saw such actions as nice little earners.
And so they became the happiest of grave diggers,
Surprising all with their giggles and sniggers.