Albert Camus And His Existential Emu

Albert Camus

Kept an Emu

Tied to a potted,

Portable wisteria

To keep him company

Whilst he kept goal

For the University of Algeria.

As Albert was fishing

The ball out

From the back of the net

The Emu mused

On the conversations they’d had

About The Oprah Winfrey Show,

The significance of suffragettes,

Adam Smith’s Wealth Of Nations

And the sexual orientation

Of Sir Galahad.

Whilst discussing the plots of

The Plague and The Outsider

Warm feelings would suddenly

Well up inside her.

Why should such intellect

Elicit so much love

And even more pain?

My thoughts for this man

Aren’t getting any vaguer.

Then Utrecht University

Scored again.

There are no happy endings

With Albert Camus -

Decades later he dies

In his publisher’s Facel Vega.

When she heard of Albert’s demise

Her initial reaction

Was hysteria

And it comes as no surprise

That a few weeks later

She died of diphtheria

Which is so much easier to do

When you’re an existential emu.