How to Make a Killing
I have a dream and this is what it is
A dream that all those white and lovely hunters,
Full of the joy of life and bounce and fizz
Flying into South Africa’s raw lands, these punters,
Armed to the teeth with guns and aftershave
Hoping to bag a leopard or a lion
To you, you gutsy guys and gals I say:
One day, this is my dream I can’t deny it,
I’d like you to feel the thrill of a hunt
A thrill so deep, it claws into your very pit
Into your very bowels, oh, how you’ll grunt
You’ll howl, you’ll moan, you’ll cry with joyful tears,
In ecstasy your bladder weeps its piss,
This is a hunt that’s different, awake and hear.
Ok, this is my song for all good men to sing
And fat-arsed women too who love to kill as well,
From sweet old Yankee towns where gun is king
Where on weekends, you drag home ripped -off pelts
Or broken stags roped to your blood-smeared bonnet.
Not like felling a massive elephant no way,
When your great fat rifle spews a mighty rocket.
Oh watch it crash down shaking the bloody earth
Heaving, spurting sheets of bloody rain
Wondering in its dumbo brain, what hurts?
What is this searing racking filthy pain?
But now the light is fading fast oh yes,
Before the veil descends it sees his killer
Smiling for the camera, one foot on its neck.
But I have a dream to make your hunt real feisty,
Not stick your rifle on a tripod, wait
Whilst beaters coax your leopard out real nicely
Then blow its brains from out its spotted pate
How handsome you look, blood-splattered, gun in hand
Like you’re a hero which of course you are,
Show your kids the pics, oh what a man!
Some say – The leopard’s worth twenty of you
Some say you’re just a heap of shit upon this earth
Standing there in all your bold effrontery
Whilst that rare beauteous wonder bites the dirt
Some say, what a scumbag coward you are, man,
You filthy stiff-backed wretch, a white disease,
Ignore those views and hear my wondrous plan.
I’d like you to feel the deep thrill of the hunt
When your blood will turn to ice, your shit to sludge
The lions odour makes you want to faint
But even up the chances, be the judge
What guts d’ya need to fire off a round?
You’ve got balls the size of raisins you mug
Here’s something that will make your weak heart pound.
Get out there in the bush just one to one,
Take a spear, a club, a knife, be brave
Don’t hide behind your stinking coward’s gun,
Give the beast a fighting chance you knave!
Oh then you’ll feel the sweet power of the hunt
Once the stalker now you’re being stalked
Oh that’s a thrill you’ll never ever find.
Sitting behind your fat steel stainless cock.
Even up the chances, feel the heat
Alright, it may just beat you , maybe lock
Your head between its piercing crunching teeth
Strip off your yellow flesh with its razor claws
Or crush your skull until your eyeballs pop
But then they’ll say ‘Oh God that man had balls!’
So here’s my simple dream for you brave men
It doesn’t really mean I hate your guts
Just even up the odds, like in a gang
You fight against the same number of thugs
How can you shoot that beautiful giraffe
Just ‘cause it’s big, exotic and so tame
Oh how this great beast crumbled for your game…
The loathsome beast whose name is man
sits posing by the corpse of this great thing
This majestical creature, which surveyed the land
From it’s high towered head, but couldn’t see
The stinking gun-armed man who squints and aims
It’s legs lost their connection to its brain
What God had put together this man unmade!
A funny thing this spawn of Satan wears
The symbol of Christ’s pain upon the cross
Whilst decimating all that we hold dear
And yet so proud of this, our bitter loss
He needs to smear the creature’s precious blood
It’s gore upon his stupid brutish face
But still his face is just as ugly as it was.
No matter how much blood this human sheds
And women too, although it’s sad to say
That they can be as stupid as some men
No matter how much blood’s upon your face
It will not cure your pestilential plague
That spreads its canker on the human race!
© Steven Berkoff 2011