The Tallest Bridge in the World - a poem by Chris Zachariou

London Bridge - Photo by Nicholas Goodden

Hail our bridge

the tallest bridge in the whole world.

Made of white marzipan

—beautiful, mouth-watering marzipan—

it stands in the waters of the river

on giant stilts of fruit and cake.

On this bridge each night

grey men in suits of wasted lives

scurry for the trains to suburban hell.

A painter in a bowler hat

sat on its stairs of fruit and cake

and began to paint pictures

of little swallows and bulldogs

on the walls of Cardboard City.

A woman sitting on the floor

offered him some Boursin cheese

and a glass of French wine.

Dear Lord!
French cheese and wine!

Surely, she mistook him for a tramp

and not the world's greatest artist.

He was aghast!

In a spree of righteous anger

he murdered all the swallows

and fed them to the smiling bulldogs.

A plain-clothes policeman

walked out through a painted door

from underneath the greatest bridge

and seeing such a scene of carnage

he took his pistol from its holster

and shot the vagrant dead.

A missionary hearing the gunshot
came running to the murder scene.

He saw a woman besides herself with grief

weeping over the body of her dying brother.

He assumed she was drunk on French wine

—you can never trust the morals of the French—

and she had stabbed that man to death.

But he also knew this was not his fight.

Things became clear that night
and the young TV reporter knew
at last he had found enlightenment.

He looked with pride at the bridge

made of marzipan and cake

—the best and whitest marzipan

except perhaps in Arizona—

and took a giant bite from its leg.

The leg wobbled back and forth

and then collapsed into the river.

It was reported on TV that night,

a rotund man cycling on the water

was crashed then drowned.

'London Bridge is falling down

falling down, falling down

London Bridge is falling down

my fair lady'

Patriots asked if they could scatter

the obese man's ashes on the river

but the judge refused to give permission.

In a ceremony of pomp and circumstance

they were scattered in the Channel

and they drifted all the way to France.

'What a great story'

—thought the young reporter with much pride—

'this must be the greatest story in the world'.