Unleash the boys
Shotgun style
To enter a living grave
The very unnatural history museum
The zoo of the dead
No talking, no laughing, no moving
animals crystallised in motion
It's Dickensian here on a summer's day
As deeper in we delve
The dark teak panels stained with blood
Glass cases crammed with taxidermist's sport
Fish preserved in murky fluids
Orang-utan to Homo sapiens
Jig saws of bones
Crazy paving designs
Of animals whose names
I read in tiny black old style print
Faced with wolf fangs and sharks teeth
Heinous monsters braying for blood
The boy hunters are braver than ever before
They snarl in the face of ferocity
Their laughter hollow on the top floor of
magnificent mammals
We plunder through the macabre
Over us parachuting down
Skeletons of the blue tooted whales, rhinos, hippos
In a dark crevice hangs a human photo
which by its very presence catches my eye
a collector benefactor to the hunters of today
Obsessed with animals he collected and catalogued
a vast selection of rare and slippery sorts
this nineteenth century man
A very natural labour of love
