The Saga of Bartlebee Charm, Fluberries, and the Great Goat Farm
(From the There Once Was collection)
by Daniel J. Rogers
There once was a man named Bartlebee Charm
Who lived beside a giant goat farm,
He woke in the morning, rubbed his eyes
Stretched and stepped over his cooking supplies.
Bartlebee, you see, he was a cook
And had a famous dish named Chickory Magook
Known far and wide was this acclaimed meal
And for $2.99 the taste was a steal.
From the fantastical Fluberry Fish
Bartlebee found the secret to the dish.
A fluberry is a hairy blue berry
Perhaps as rare as mythical fairy
He kept it so secret, nobody knew,
What, how or where the Fluberries grew.
But ah, how I digress,
Bartlebee woke and began to dress.
He put on his apron, to fix some Fluberry Stew
But first opened the window to gather the view
In his first breath he was taken aback
By the stench of purged goat digestive tracts
“How can I work in such a smell,
Surely this will turn all my dishes to hell”
And with that Bartlebee began to think,
Tapping his noggin above the sink,
Thinking “How I hate the wind blowing such a stench
What I would give can’t be measured in cents,
To stop such a smell, it’s driving me mad,
Why can’t that farmer retire like his dad?”
And with this idea, he grinned from ear to ear,
He would run the farm out of business without fear,
Then he could make all the Chickory Magook the world could eat,
And build a great kitchen to accomplish the feat,
Creating the best restaurant that ever was,
To line his pockets with gold because
He was the best, sure as hell,
But first to deal with that awful smell.
Bartlebee snuck into the farm at night,
Hiding in shadows, well out of sight,
And in his madness which he thought to be fun,
He added to the goats’ water some rat poison.
And sadly it was the very next day
That the goats could no longer eat any hay
They lay dead in the fields on the soft green ground
And the farmer was bankrupt, and had to leave town.
Ecstatic was Bartlebee, brimming with joy
For now with the success of his ploy
He would be rich and famous but wouldn’t confess
He owed it all to those poor goat deaths.
But soon when he went to find the secret Fluberry bush
He saw how few there were to mush
“No matter” he thought, “they always grow back”
And continued his plot on its planned track.
Days went by and turned into weeks
But the Fluberries dwindle while Bartlebee seeks
The secret ingredient that was worth kissing
How he wished he knew why they were missing.
And then the Fluberry fish- so special to his meal
Had nothing to eat and nothing to steal
From those precious Fluberry bushes that hung on the shore
And Bartlebee’s grand scheme began making him poor.
You see my friends, I sit here in this fen
Where I was born and can remember even back then,
How important goat poop is for the Fluberry to flourish
Even though I never made it into a dish
I loved the wind that sent its smell my way
Something that Bartlebee can’t quite say,
He hated the wind, and how ridiculous to assume
That whatever blows on it, whether me or you
Is independent and from the next goat, Fluberry or thing-
Such a notion has only disaster to bring.