It was hate at first sight, in the morning light,
Between me and the rat who through the night
Had scuttled round my kitchen floor,
Gnawing non-stop; this was war.

He’d eaten crumbs beneath my table;
Fruit and nuts, electric cable,
Used teabags, a tube of toothpaste –
Rats consider nothing waste.

As he chewed, I trapped the fucker
In the gap beside the cooker.
This rat’s ship would sink today;
Pest control were on their way.

And while we waited for his end,
I watched him, where I had him penned;
His final meal, a crust of bread –
Schrodinger’s rat, alive and dead.

According to medieval tomes,
In Ireland they recited poems
To rid infested homes of rats;
So I read him TS Eliot’s Cats.

The old Egyptians, silly sods,
Regarded rats as little gods,
Higher than the human race;
But since then, mankind’s flown to space,

Made the worldwide web and television,
Discovered genes and nuclear fission.
Created music, art and novels,
Built palaces in place of hovels.

Rats have rather less to show
For those three thousand years or so.
They spread disease and die in labs
And live on crap that’s up for grabs.

But are our lives so far apart?
We’re flesh and blood and pounding heart
Both beasts, pursuer and pursued,
Creatures fighting over food.

So I put him in a cardboard box
And set him free at the local docks
Where perhaps he boarded a cargo ship
That took a transatlantic trip

And dropped him off in a sunny clime
Beneath a palm he might recline
And think of me, and mop his brow,
And smile; who’s stupid now?