Beware the bully, his shoulders held high,
See how his chest puffs, his gaze holds your eye
Note now the lopsided lope of his stride,
Observe affectations that betray his pride.
He paces his habitat, the Friday night pub,
As he searches for victims amongst the hubbub
The shy the fearful, the innocent or weak
The wealthy the happy, the loner the freak
His gaze flits to and his gaze flits fro,
Scanning the crowds for that tell-tale show
He watches for clues, for evidence to stack
Until he finds the pup that strays from the pack
Predators, you see, never like their prey
To be tricky to taste, or to have to pay
With their own blood for their evening meal
Preferring instead to trick, trap or to steal
“For what good is a feast,” they seem to say,
“If it’s so hard earned as to spoil my day.
Or end my days or cause on me
The pain and suffering I intended to thee.”
And so they wait, and pick and choose,
Until they find a victim whose
Attention is spent on a phone or a book,
Too busy with text to take time to look
Above and beyond their own personal space,
Into the crowd for an unfriendly face
Or who’s defences are downed by a whisky too many,
As they stumbles alone off to ‘spend a penny’.
Or those who through their signals alone,
Declare their fear of the dark, the wide unknown
Or perhaps those whose bodily cues seem to say
That they don’t present a risky buffet.
The fidget, the hunch, the averted eye,
The mumbled words, the timid reply.
For the lost and the lonely, they serve such a rich
Juicy and succulent victim sandwich
But all this grand strategy, this plan of attack
Do little more than to point to the crack
In his armour, the chink, the fatal flaw,
The Achilles heel, the open back door.
The bully you see doesn’t like it when
The fox’s tail gets pecked by the hen
So more often than not the medicine, the cure,
Is little more than a good punch in the jaw.
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