Jack and Michelle tried to stay in the shade,
Except to play tennis. They sipped lemonade.
They followed the flight of a blue butterfly.
They spoke to Jemima. She filled her reply

With words and with tears all composed in her head.
They flowed to the ground as she broke up some bread
To feed to the ducks with their waterproof backs,
Something that she unmistakably lacks.

Salt water flows from her sad pale blue eyes
Whenever she speaks. Her words all wear sighs.
This time the cause of her tears was the man
Who had to make fun of her uneven tan.

This 'man' was called Malcolm, a species of louse.
Jack and Michelle went to visit his house
To call him some sort of a sod and a cad,
A coward full of crud and a pitiful ad

For a new modern man full of manners and grace.
With placards and banners they'd picket his base.
But Malcolm invited them in for a drink,
Locating, entirely by chance, the one chink

In the great armour they wore for this meeting
And cordial greeting and subsequent beating.
The beating was sadly delayed until after
The drinks and the cheerful remarks and the laughter.

He happened to mention a woman he knows
Who gets through the long summer days without clothes.
Instead she wears sheets and her feet live in sandals.
She brings smiles to faces of nihilist vandals.

Malcolm took Jack and Michelle to see her.
Clad in her bed clothes, she caused quite a stir.
She had on her head an abundance of hair,
Filled with wild flowers and sweet-scented air.

A warm, happy crowd gathered 'round her as she
Stood on a hill-side, content just to be.
Malcolm was happy to look at her smile,
Admiring her looks and impeccable style,

Until he saw someone approaching the hill,
A man with a beard who was itching to kill.
A ditch was the best place for Malcolm to hide,
Or else it's a grave with the date that he died.

He lives life with passion and pays little heed
To personal well-being. It's part of his creed.
A personal hell being a day doing nothing,
Just humming and hawing and if-ing and but-ing,

And endlessly beating about the thorn bush.
Dead engine days need a jump start or push.
Malcolm is happy to charge straight ahead
As soon as he wakes and he exits his bed.

Without exception, he says what he means.
It's not read from scripts for pre-prepared scenes.
He says it as soon as it enters his mind.
He can't press a button for 'pause' or 'rewind'.

His comments go straight to the heart of the nub.
He once told a farmer he met in a pub
That all of his cattle were terribly ugly.
The look in the eyes of his cows said 'please drug me'.

He once told a nun that his Nan could defeat her.
In wrestling, karate or judo she'd beat her.
And later he met her again and he said,
"Look out for a red laser beam on your head."

And all because this poor unfortunate nun
Looked at him sternly the time he made fun
Of a little dog's hat and its owner's new hair,
Comments which triggered the nun's icy glare.

He makes fun of people who wear fancy clothes.
He thinks that they're basically magpies or crows
Dressed up as parrots or paradise birds,
Though he can express this in far fewer words.

And often with people who out-stay their welcome,
Malcolm will happily hurriedly help them
Off to the exit by saying his brain
Needs the embrace of a gin bottle's rain

To ease the discomfort of their endless chatter.
He says their mind's scenery must surely be flatter
Than landscapes in Holland, without the windmills,
No items of interest to give their mind thrills.

He once met a woman as she played her part
In a mass protest. With all of her heart
She told him her reasons for being anti-war.
Malcolm responded with 'You shot JR'.

To which she reacted by hitting him with
The placard she carried. She called him a 'git'.
But she used a word with a similar effect.
You won't find it in a good dictionary -- I checked.

He often regrets these unthought interjections,
Like harmful political gaffes at elections,
Especially the ones that will do him more harm.
His skill to insult isn't balanced by charm.

His mouth often leads him to imminent fighting.
It can't lead him out. It won't say the right thing
After the wrong thing it said with such glee.
He has to rely on his fleet feet to flee.

They temporarily took him away
From the man with the beard at the end of a day,
Right after Malcolm had called him a 'ding'
For singing along to a love song by Sting.

The man with the beard stood up from his chair.
He was much taller and fiercer up there.
He relished a fight, and so Malcolm ran.
His policy to hide behind ditches began.

Both Jack and Michelle were well able to guess
The reason for Malcolm's despair and distress.
When his bearded enemy came to the hill,
Michelle told him Malcolm was seen at the mill.

He thanked her and left with a smile on his face.
Malcolm emerged from his safe hiding place.
He thanked her and told her he owed her a favour.
She cast his mind back to the drink that he gave her.

So they called it quits. They put it to bed.
With her tennis racket she hit him and said,
"That's for Jemima. You shouldn't have told her
Her tan had retreated to camp on her shoulder."