Faux*
I bought a faux-fur overcoat,
from a tailor in Dundee.
If only, at the time, I’d known
what a faux-pas that would be:
For now I’m being pestered
almost everywhere I go,
by a militant band of protesters
called “The Friends Of The Faux”
who lately lie in wait for me,
then, when I’m in full view,
chuck buckets of red paint at me,
and shout “Faux have feelings too!”
* * *
I’ve assured them that I meant no harm,
no way I could determine
the cruel methods used to farm
these delightful little vermin,
with their fur like ginger carpet
and their antlers (on the males)
and their legs like cheesy Wotsits,
and their stubby little tails.
So tiny, it takes ninety-one
to make a single hat -
and hardly enough meat on one
to feed a vegan gnat.
No hope for life nor limb for them,
no sky nor trees. Instead,
thousands packed in spiteful pens
in air-conditioned sheds:
their bodies crushed and crippled
in these choking metal cubes,
beneath the noxious flickering
of sick fluorescent tubes,
a scandalous environment
(but one that never fails
to be familiar to anyone
who’s worked in telesales…)
A far cry from the pastures –
the ones in which are born
those other curious creatures:
the plucky, free-range Quorn,
(which are hunted in their millions,
out in the fields and prairies and
which now face mass extinction,
thanks to all the “vegetarians”,
who devour them with impunity,
their consciences complete:
for Quorn is bland and rubbery
and doesn’t taste of meat…)
* * *
The pro-faux lobby launched crusades
to save these wretched beasts
and in one daring midnight raid,
the faux were all released
into the countryside where they
could gambol and explore,
and decimate the mink that they
had freed the year before.
* * *
So, sick of persecution,
the Dulux, and the threats,
I found the resolution
when I read, upon the ‘net,
that genuine faux is really only
bred out in the Hebrides,
and costs a hundred grand a throw;
and is beloved of celebrities:
Marilyn Monroe and Bridget Bardot
wore faux-flannel nighties to bed.
Dario Fo was a foe of the faux,
and Black Sabbath bit off their heads.
It seems my tailor in Dundee,
who’d seemed so honest, nonetheless
had effortlessly swindled me.
(You’d think I might’ve guessed
when he claimed to trade in ivory
and said that, for a tenner,
he’d be able to procure, for me,
the horns of a Dilemma…)
And when I told those saboteurs
the truth behind my “crime”,
how their efforts to oppress me were
a massive waste of time:
Oh – how their faces, all, did fall
and lost their pro-faux mojo,
when informed my coat’s not faux at all –
it’s actually only faux-faux…
* No Faux, Quorn or Dilemmas were harmed in the writing of this poem…
