The Pardoner's Tale - Baba Brinkman

My story begins at a bar, where three friends

Drink cheap gin and party hard all weekend

These men were riot-starter types

Who spent the better part of their money on cards and dice

Livin' the life of loose women and vice

Pickin' fights, seduced by all seven different types

Of sins, a feeding frenzy of Vengeance

Vanity, Lust, Greed and Envy

Devious energy left them half-insane

Laughing deranged like hyenas at their bastard games;

As each glass was drained and each bet was placed

They set the pace and left space for their next mistakes

All excessive waste and drunken rambling

With eager hands trembling;

eventually gambling

Leads to panhandling, But that’s the price

You pay to cast the dice, and other appetites

Pay the same sacrifice, while the false assumption

Is they help us function, when really it’s just a dungeon

Of self-consumption

In other words, it’s not worth it;

This world is not perfect, but it gets worse if

Flesh is the only god you worship

As mortal men you

Need more than the sinews in your corpse to defend you

But let the story continue, the same as before

Where these three hard-core men drink at the bar

Someone came in the door and ordered a beer

And told a sad story they were sorry to hear;

Choking on tears, he said, «Death is a thief!

My friend was asleep and his breath just ceased

May he rest in peace, and never be stressed;

I guess people ever need to be ready to meet Death!»

And disrespectfully, the three inebriated rioters

Proceeded to curse and debated the guy’s words:

«I've heard,» stated the first, «Enough about Death!

Every town is gripped in his clutches without rest

What is it about this foe that’s so scary?

Please

If an adversary bleeds and breathes the same air as me

I can bury it!

See, fellas, what I’m tellin'

You is: Death is a villain, and the rest is irrelevant

So let’s go kill him!»

When he’d said his piece

The rest agreed, and the three friends hit the streets

And went to seek their destiny, and provoke a confrontation

In a drunken rage, hoping Death would come and face them

Their intoxication made them sure of their purpose

And fed the infernal furnace of their courage, a kernel

Nourished by these three murderous wretches in denial

Less than a mile into their quest to put Death on trial

They met this guy all wrapped in bandages

An old handicapped man, with disadvantages

And the three friends examined his bleeding flesh

And demanded he tell them how he was cheating death

Seeming perplexed, the old man responded with soft words

And said, «I walk the earth like a creature God has cursed!

My lot is the worst and most desperate place to be;

I pray faithfully every day for Death to take me

Waiting patiently, and someday he will arrive

But in the meantime, until I die, I’m still alive.»

In a burst of ill-advised pride, the first

Of the three rioters replied, «This guy

Is a spy, or worse!

I guess Death is his master

And gives him everlasting life forever after

A benevolent benefactor, perhaps, to have protecting you

But nothing gets a confession faster than weapons do!»

And stepping to this old man with mindless threats

They demanded he tell them where they could find Death

«Find Death?»

laughed the old man, «Perhaps you will;

He lives under that tree on that grassy hill.»

Ready to kill, with their jagged-edged daggers drawn

The three aggravated braggarts staggered up the lawn

And without dragging on while the story is told

Beneath the tree they found a bag filled with glorious gold

The hoard was more than forty-fold their wildest dreams

And they smiled like demons, hatching violent schemes

While the steam from their previous plan was dissipated;

They were so fixated on the gold, it just abated

And the search for death was traded for work of greater urgency

Now the worst of the three had the first words to speak

And said, «Certainly it seems fortune gave us this gold

To save us from having to work and slave in the cold

But fortune favours the bold, and to spend this treasure

On endless pleasures, to begin we’d better

Take preventative measures, ‘cause if the switch from poor to rich

Is too disproportionate, then law-enforcement will get

Suspicious how we afforded it, and then we’ll pay the price

So let’s sit tight and play this right:

See, we’ll wait 'til late at night, and if all is not lost

Under the cover of darkness we can haul this all off

But for now we’ll draw straws, since we’ve got a lot of time

And one of us can run off and buy a bottle of wine.»

The others thought the plot was fine, and trusted its wit

And the youngest among them drew the cut stick

And rushed to get booze so this could be celebrated

As the other two plotted and whispered while they waited

The worst delegated again and said, «Listen friend

Let’s invent a way to get paid a greater dividend

In the end we can each have half this treasure

If we get our acts together now and take drastic measures.»

The other asked incredulously, «How can this be

When right now we’re bound to split the treasure by three?»

«Let's see,» said the first with a savage laugh

«Just imagine the third man gets stabbed in the back

Now, I’m bad at maths, addition and subtraction

But don’t we get to split the treasure in half then?

You distract him when he comes back with the wine

And I’ll make sure our young friend gets stabbed in the spine

The first attack is mine, then you back me up;

Just slash his gut, and add the last cut

To our friend’s bad luck.»

And because of his greed

The other agreed to this covetous deed

By the trunk of this tree they waited to pounce

While the youngest of the three made his way into town

Weighted-down by the thought of a whole lotta gold

Which inaudibly caught ahold of him and gnawed at his soul

He wanted it so bad he could taste it;

Any part of it shared was like a part of it wasted

And he harboured a hatred in his heart, and decided

Never to let this precious treasure get divided

And guided by the shine of carnal greed

He went to buy the wine, and then to the pharmacy

And, sounding harmless, he asked for this black ointment

That he’d seen used in the past as rat poison

Meaning to trap his boys into drinking tainted wine

While at the same time thinking, «The game is mine!»

Another famous line that became his last words

'Cause when he got back the others acted first

And stabbed him mercilessly with vicious blows

And since the kid was quick to give up the ghost

They proposed a victory toast to the crime

And both enjoyed a glass of the poisoned wine

And collapsed, going blind, in a fit of convulsions

Which halted their pulses and ultimately resulted in

Their spirits' expulsions

And because of their greed

They did indeed find Death under the tree

They did indeed find Death under the tree