John Whitworth

This elfin child was taken into care, And maintenance devolved upon the State. His whimpering mother was inadequate, His father vanished into empty air. Life came unfurnished – nobody was there To dress his wounds and make the pain abate. It was too much to ask and far too late To find another mother anywhere. His scars healed up, his head was cleared of lice, His shorts stayed clean, his nose stopped dripping snot, But life to him was what he had not got, And certain of his habits were not nice. He was a ticking clock about to strike. Nobody liked him. What was there to like?

The soul is like a little mouse. He hides inside the body’s house With anxious eyes and twitchy nose As in and out he comes and goes, A friendly, inoffensive ghost Who lives on tea and buttered toast. He is so delicate and small Perhaps he is not there at all; Long-headed chaps who ought to know Assure us it cannot be so. But sometimes, as I lie in bed, I think I hear inside my head His soft ethereal song whose words Are in some language of the birds, An air-borne poetry and prose Whose liquid grammar no one knows. So we go on, my soul and I, Until, the day I have to die, He packs his bags, puts on his hat And leaves for ever. Just like that.

He said, it’s a structural workforce imbalance and I thought where’s the scope for a man of your talents? He said, it’s retargeting personal goals and I thought yet all human resources have souls. He said, it’s a preplanned executive cull and I thought you’ve a horrible shape to your skull. He said, it’s a labour pool surplus reduction and I thought I could pop out your eyeballs by suction. He said, it’s transitioned vocational severance and I thought that’s my cods in the mincer, your reverence. He said, it’s downsizing, dehiring, decruiting and I thought also strangling and stabbing and shooting. He said, you’re redundant, you’re done for, you’re dead and I thought same to you, squire, and cut off his head.

This is the Tiger and this is Rousseau. This is the picture I painted to show That this is the Tiger, so supple and eager. And this is the customs man, suited and meagre, And what do we wonder and what do we know? This is the Tiger and this is Rousseau. I am Rousseau and I painted the Tiger, The Tiger so fierce and the Tiger so free. This is the jungle, the terrible tangle, And these are the teeth that will torture and mangle, And all of it up on the wall as you see. This is the Tiger and this? This is me. This is the man and he works in an office, And this is the beast so unhuman and fine. This is the picture. I painted the picture. With cunning and craft I effected the capture, I conjured the colour, I dreamed the design, And I painted the Tiger. The Tiger is mine.