Ballade Of The Cannibal Poem by Gert Strydom

(after A. G. Visser)

He is larger than a big giant
with a strange mole on his nose
and his grip is so hard when he grabs naughty children
that his great hands do bruise them.

Chorus:
When unexpectedly the dogs do growl outside
and it's almost midnight,
when children treat their parents with disdain
then you will see him
where he is laughing with his missing teeth

and always slobber runs out of his huge mouth
in which there is only one yellow tooth when he opens it up
and even if he bites right through a rebellions child,
he is only busy licking his lips for another twenty.

The mole looks as large as a pumpkin
and on his one strange foot there is a shoe
but with the other great paw he walks barefoot
and people find strange tracks where he is doing evil.

There is a strange lump behind his right ear
but when he does sneeze it sounds as if you hear the thunder
and it is told that he walks very strangely
sometimes skew like a crab or backwards

and the blood on his grey-white beard is dry
where he stands meters high, almost like a tree
but it's weird how ugly he really is
and do look into two directions with a brown and a blue eye

when he touch the ribs of those that he wants to catch to determine if the are fat
and before he takes them he hits them unconscious,
sniffs at those that he carries away when his mouth does drool some more
and so slyly he does catch the children that they do remain missing

when he does disappear into Bushy Mountain in a dark hidden cave
and many people say that it's a story and that place is only fabricated
but if you pass the mountain at night there are children crying
as he fattens them with honey and their time is running out.

[Reference:"Die mensvreter" (The cannibal)by A. G. Visser.]

© Gert Strydom