MiPo Poetry Board Best of 2002

John Walker 
(John Walker Challenge)

Once,
I was a bottle of scotch
and the Scots
made a profit on me

I strode across the world
so I could be
at rapes and murders
divorces and christenings
and the spaying of bitches

I have started fires
in tires and crosses
I have dulled tattooing needles
and created losses
I have been
at ceremonies
for ringbarked Hebes
I was in Athens
but never in Thebes

I have comforted and
I have also derided
suicides and homicides

I have rationalised
and marketed genocides

I have helped cars
be driven into cars
and Polaks and deer
and elk and Bohunks
and cats and Wops
and cows and people

I have helped cut the weenie
off a Protestant Sheenie

Judas drank me,
Churchill drank me
Barabas drank me,
Roosevelt drank me
Pol Pot drank me
Stalin drank me

Once,
I was a bottle of scotch

and

I emptied
myself out
so the Scots
could not
profit upon me
so others could
prophet for me
so I could stride
across the world