You may well ask
Yes
Zebra that’s right
That me
Funny name
Strange game
Especially when you stop to consider
I was born one of five brothers and two sisters
Fighting like fury for a milky teat
When I wasn’t
Filling my belly
I was pressed hard up
Against my mothers furry arse
In the back of a shed in Rochdale
In street forgotten by time
Life was tough
Rough
Even
But Zanzibar
Was never far
A banana box lid
Was where we crept
In the darkness
A banana box lid
Was where we slept
A banana box lid
Was where mother would
Schlep
All manner of squeaking detritus
To home sweet home
Safe as houses
Warm as toast
No Hobgoblins
In our shed
It wouldn’t happen
They’d be dead
No more to be said
My Father
He would sorted that
No one fucked with Mulligan
He was no scaredy cat
Yes ours was a
An exotic
Chaotic
Pied A Terre
Then came the day
That fateful day
That stopped
The good life
No more eating
No more bleating
For a teat
No more playing
With my sister
I couldn’t resist her
No
Not today
There was no more
Play
The time had come
For us to walk
And talk
For in the doorways light
Stood my father
His eyes were blazing
Green and bright
His hiss a roar
A fearsome sight
Suddenly Mulligan
Shouted OUT
And suddenly
There we all were
Out
Out and about
Knee deep in dead mattress
Crambling
Scrambling
Over rambling
Roses
Roses that died long before the old King
Picking and sticking
We foraged forward
Over shards of glass
And flattened grass
Where over lay
Rusted
Crusted
Supermarket trolleys
Bent and broken
Open
Like the bleached corpses
Of the Kalahari
There we all were
Shivering and afraid
‘Neth wild and windswept skies
And fouling stingle mist
Mist
That stung and clung
To your fur like
A thief
Keep walking
Ordered Mulligan
Don’t look at me
And don’t look back
And to each of you
I’ll give a name
Remember it
It’s the only thing that’s
Yours
This is no shitty
Kitty game
Springheart, Lester
Pudding and Punch
Sallied forth into that morn
Mulligan growled
Then hissed again
Then led way that lonely train
Brigham
And then the sweetest
Daisy May
Now
All but me were gone
Mulligan gerned up his face
And snarling said
Off with you
Be on your way
And on your way
Mind you don’t stop
To sleep beneath a tree
Or chase a mouse
Or scratch a louse
Or even think of me
Don’t stop
Until that day
You find a friend
And only you will know
A friend
Who smiling stoops
To ask your name
My name is Zebra
You will say
And I am here
I am here
To stay
Oh yes
I am here
I am here
I am here for
Ever
And a day
Your friend won’t know
That he is your friend
But you will Zebra
You will
