A POEM - IT WAS THE PEOPLE WHO RACED- THE RATS TOOK THEIR SWEET TIME

IT WAS THE PEOPLE WHO RACED- THE RATS TOOK THEIR SWEET TIME
Some nights I’d just sit at the bar
And watch the rats
sneak in and out of the kitchen.
I’d think long and hard
about those bastards,
How for ages and ages
they’d made it,
Just scrounging
through the trash and filth,
Carrying with them
every terrible disease,
Peering out at the world
from those dull eyes.
Thinking nothing about life
Or death. Just living by instinct,
FIND FOOD, AVOID DANGER, FUCK
AND CARRY ON THE RACE.
Eventually the barman would see the rats,
And charge towards them shouting,
pounding his feet to scare them off.
One time this big bastard
Came waddling out,
Probably’d just finished a whole pot of curry,
And he stopped there in the doorway,
Stared right at me for a minute,
And I knew if he could have a thought
In that raisin brain of his, and if
He could speak that raisin thought, he’d say,
“you know, there’s very little difference
Between your people and mine.”