Hi @rickygervais, I always hoped you would see this poem I wrote just after Cecil's murder by that sadistic psychopathic (in my opinion) dentist, Walter Palmer. It includes some lines about you to let you know how much you are appreciated for your relentless help to animals, giving us all a bloody good laugh along the way, of course. Thank you from millions of us. I think it's safe to say I can speak for that many people.
“Cecil the Lion” by Rob Spratt (2015)
Walter Palmer is a Jekyll and Hyde.
On the one hand a doctor, but a sadist inside.
He’s a smiley dentist who fixes your teeth,
but you’d never imagine the dark side beneath.
In short, he’s a killer, who slaughters for fun.
It makes him feel manly to kill with his gun.
He loves to see victims appear in his sights
and squeezing the trigger and snuffing out life.
Most can’t imagine what goes through the mind
of a killer of one, let alone, serial kind.
But for Walter, it’s easy. He’s now killed so many
that, what’s one more victim? Why stop while there’s any?
It sounds like you can’t get more sicker than this
but here’s where the story now takes a twist.
You’d think that we’d cage him or have him committed,
but his murderous ways are mostly permitted.
Forgetting the time when he lied to the court,
his murderous ways are allowed under law.
He signs a few papers and pay lots of cash
then he can add all the heads that he wants to his stash.
You see, Walt’s a hunter, so the goalposts get moved.
He’s allowed to kill things that have claws, paws or hooves.
As long as it hasn’t got feet, like a man,
he’s pretty much licensed to kill what he can.
Sure, there are limits to what he can do,
but limits mean nothing to Walt and his crew.
They’ll happily bend all the rules if they must;
whatever it takes to indulge their bloodlust.
And what is the worst that can happen? A fine?
Pft! A small price to pay for having such a good time.
Besides, when you’re rich and have all you can buy,
what else is there possibly left you can try?
Of course, that’s not serious. I’m having a laugh.
There’s plenty of rich who don’t crave a bloodbath.
One, for example, is Ricky Gervais.
Now there is a man who’d put Walt in his place.
Ricky’s renown for the love and respect
he shows for all creatures. He can’t stand neglect.
He’s always campaigning, and makes issues trend.
Ricky, for sure, is the animal’s friend.
Now, compare that with Walter, with his opposite views.
He thinks that animals are there to abuse.
He’s only happy when he’s made sure one’s dead,
so then he can skin it and cut off its head.
So, do I vote Ricky, with his caring brain?
or, do I vote Walter, who’s border insane?
It’s a no-brainer for me because animals matter.
So, Walter or Ricky? Of course, it’s the latter.
Thank you, dear Ricky, for devoting your time
to fight for the voiceless. You’re a hero of mine.
For all that you do, and if I had my way,
you’d be jumping the queue and we’d knight you today.
But Walt says it’s natural, the way he behaves;
that it comes from a time when we all lived in caves.
Is that what it is? Has the problem been solved?
Did poor Walter’s brain just never evolve?
While mankind’s advanced, e.g. trips into space,
poor Walter is still firmly stuck in one place.
He thinks he’s a caveman, is how it appears,
from a long time ago, about 2 million years.
I should be amazed he can function at all;
that his limit’s not hunting or else drawing on walls.
Perhaps it’s a miracle that he can even talk
and use sophisticated tools like a knife and a fork.
But hunting is probably what Walter’s dad did.
So, Walt learned from dad what he’ll now teach his kids.
Often, bad habits are just handed down;
the cycle’s not broken so it keeps going round.
Walter might say it’s not about killing at all.
It’s more about trophies and the heads on his wall.
As long as there’s someone who’s beating his score,
then the incentive is there to just keep killing more.
But I don’t really care what makes Walter tick.
It simply might be that he’s got a small dick.
If you’re looking for reasons then there really are none.
You don’t torture animals and then kill them for fun.
But karma’s a bitch and for all past abuse,
Walt’s suddenly found himself in the news.
He broke rule number one of the hunting game,
which is: “Don’t kill an animal that’s been given a name”.
On his last trip, he butchered a lion called Cecil.
A fatal mistake because Cecil was special.
The public adored him. He was more like a pet.
And by murdering Cecil, Walt’s fate was set.
He went to the park where Cecil would roam
and by using some bait he lured him from his home.
But that’s not allowed so as Cecil was approaching,
what started as hunting then turned into poaching.
The next crime committed was how Cecil was shot.
You see, a bullet’s allowed but an arrow is not.
But with a bow and an arrow and a playing card,
Walter will skewer it from a 100 yards.
So it’s very obvious that a man with such skill
would think: “Arrows in cards? Why, when I can use them to kill”.
So he raised up his bow, and after doing some checks,
he plunged a bolt deep into poor Cecil’s neck.
But it seems that Walt wasn’t as good as he claimed,
because he didn’t kill Cecil, instead he was maimed.
For 40+ hours, Cecil wandered the plains
with a bolt in his neck and in insufferable pain.
But for compassionless Walter, it just made his day
to see Cecil suffering while his life ebbed away.
But as Cecil got slower, and it stopped being fun,
Walter just finished him off with his gun.
When it was over and Cecil was dead,
Walt noticed a collar, while severing the head.
It was clearly a tracking device that he saw,
which meant just one thing; he’d just broken the law.
So what could the manly-man Walter now do?
Of course, as with Cecil, destroy the GPS, too.
If the tracker’s not working, then there’s nothing to face
and he can hop on a plane and get out of that place.
But karma caught up and Walter ran out of time
because the tracking device was still working just fine.
But because Walt had gone, so couldn’t be confronted
Walter the hunter became Walter the hunted.
And thanks to the web and the technology age,
the whole world was soon incandescent with rage.
The message went viral about what Walt had done
and he quickly became public enemy number one.
He shut down his business and went underground.
He stopped taking calls and he couldn’t be found.
But then came a statement that he’d nicely rehearsed;
a statement so hollow that it just made things worse.
He claimed that he thought he’d respected all laws,
but he knows that’s not true and his statement was flawed.
When he lured Cecil away from his home in the park,
he knew he shouldn’t have done that, for a start.
And then there’s the arrow he put in the big cat.
He knew that he wasn’t supposed to do that.
And, destroying the tracker, just doesn’t make sense
unless he was trying to hide evidence.
So, Walter, it’s over, it’s all gone too far.
It’s time to be the man that you think that you are.
You need to face justice and face up to the fact
that you really must pay for the judgment you lacked.
The very first thing that I think you should do,
when it comes to the hunting, is to say that your through.
Just say it’s behind you, that you won’t kill any more,
and the hate you now feel will undoubtedly thaw.
But why not go further and see things in new light;
be a campaigner for lions and fight for their rights.
If you did that, you just watch the pendulum swing.
You’d no longer be satan, but a revered Lion King.
And then you can go back to the life that you knew.
The one where you’re happy, and your family are, too.
And instead of being thought of as a national disgrace,
you’ll truly be the man to put a smile on a face.
So, while this tale’s sad and it’s filled with much pain.
It now seems, at least, that Cecil didn’t die in vain.
They’re banning trophy hunting and calling it “Cecil’s Law”.
And if Walt does his bit, then we couldn’t ask for more.
RIP Cecil.
English
