
by Christopher Norris
You can call me his chief protector,
You can call me his hired gun,
Or his strong-arm press-deflector
Since it’s one of the jobs I’ve done.
Started off in the private sector,
Looking out for Number One –
I’d have taken on Hannibal Lecter
With the bunch I used to run!
Then I turned bodyguard as Director
Of Ops for his days in the sun
When we’d duff up the odd objector
When the ManBaby wanted some fun.
Yet I thought: who’d be poacher-turned-keeper
If ‘security’ means you’re employed
Just to shelter this jerk from the Reaper,
This orange-faced goon who’s destroyed
Human lives by the million (held cheaper
Than the scoundrel life he enjoyed!),
Whose lies coiled and clung like a creeper,
Whose stunts were pure celluloid,
And whose poisoned-tipped barbs struck deeper
Than a germ-bearing asteroid.
Then I thought: what are bodyguards there for
In such desperate times as these
When the top guy we’re summoned to care for
Has brought half the world to its knees?
It’s not monsters like him we prepare for,
Not tyrants who lolled at their ease
While the people they’d no time to spare for
Died in droves from a viral disease
And the ‘freedom’ he trumpets a prayer for
Is the freedom to die as we please.
A dilemma, but soon I decided
Where my best course of action lay
If this old hired gun were now guided
To bring predator down, not prey.
Oh, the papers will feast on it: ‘why did
Such a cool hand as him go astray?’,
And I’ll tell them: ‘It’s one thing I’ve prided
Myself on – still having the say
When duty and right are divided
And duty just has to give way’.
No denying the hour was a sad one
When conscience submitted its plea.
Then I thought: ‘Career? You once had one,
With your hiked-up protection fee,
But this new guy’s turned out such a bad one
That perhaps I alone hold the key’.
So I’d practise the hip-shots, then add one,
Get the whole thing worked out to a tee,
With the monster’s last outing a mad one
Facing all his accusers in me.
What Rough Beast, an anthology of poetry about you-know-who, is available here