War Of Words Poem by David Lewis Paget

The brothers Carmody, Jim and John
Were hooked on the keyboard wars,
While growing up, they’d never got on
It was always, ‘Mine, not yours! ’
Jim would destroy his brother’s bed
John was more subtle than that,
He’d battery acid his brother’s clothes,
Burn holes in his favourite hat.

They lived just barely a mile apart
When they both left home for good,
If one ran into the other, then
They’d part in a surly mood,
So each had opened a Facebook page
To put the other one down,
Where Jim said, ‘You can’t control your rage! ’
And John said Jim was a clown.

They both got married, their wives joined in
To this internecine war,
‘I hear your Betty’s seen round the town
On a bicycle built for four! ’
‘Your Jillian picked up the second prize
When she won a date with you,
The ugliest guy in the neighbourhood
And that was the third prize, too.’

Jim sprayed bleach on his brother’s lawn,
John was as sly as a fox,
One night he crept to his brother’s place
Set fire to his letterbox.
The knives were out, there were no holds barred
‘Til the night of the power blackout,
They each paused over the enter key
With a message to chill them out.

‘I’m ready to bomb your citadel,
And nobody will survive! ’
‘My crew is coming to do for you,
You’ll never get out alive! ’
They hit the keys as the power went out
The messages couldn’t be traced,
They’d flown unguided from each P.C.
And travelled in cyberspace.

Three hundred years they would float adrift
The Carmody boys, long dead,
With thirteen generations of theirs
Not knowing what each one said.
Their words, unscrambled in outer space
Would alight on an alien shore,
Where the native Rogons got what they wished,
An excuse for planetary war!

‘They’re coming to bomb our Citadel, ’
Said the Chief of the Rogons, Vork,
‘We’d better send out our nuclear fleet,
This Earth is sparring for war! ’
The fleet set out on their ten year hike
On their mission through hyperspace,
The Orkon Fleet was heading on back,
They’d been to the very same place!

‘They sent a message to us as well,
Were sending a crew to attack,
They said we wouldn’t get out alive,
We couldn’t put up with that!
We blasted Earth to a thousand bits
That are floating out by the stars,
They’ll never be threatening us again…
Come on, we’ll race you to Mars! ’

15 October 2013