Bearwulf

It's Big Game Week, the week when Stanford and Berkeley battle. This poem was written to the Eulogy for Bearial, the annual event when a teddy bear is impaled on a statue after a rewritten poem is read aloud.

Some things to know:

• Berkeley is in the East Bay
• The winner of the annual contest takes possession of the Stanford Axe. Stanford won the last Big Game.
• Stanford's school color is Cardinal.
• Old English Poetry is written in a different style. It cares about accents, not syllable-counting, and about alliteration not rhyme.
  

In ancient days, a thriving land
lay East of Eden, Big and Bountiful
Unspoiled by civilization, free of care and culture.

Then Oski came. That scourge of the scholar
that duke of the dumb, that lord of the loser
that hater of the holy, that flea-ridden fucker.
The bear built a giant university
that taught mapmaking and library science, general studies and evil.
And not just evil, but remedial evil.
For years it grew, sucking more souls
into its web of mediocrity and lies.
(And to this day, is free of culture.)

Enough was enough. It had to be stopped.
Our scene now shifts to Stanford University.
Home of our hero, who would take back that town!
He wore a shirt of silver with glints of gold.
And armed himself with a sometimes-stolen Axe
that once was his, and now is his
and will be his forevermore.
His name was Bearwulf, Killer of Bears.

He trekked to that temple of Ignorance and Idiots
called University of California, Berkeley Campus.
He yawped to that beast, "now Oski, you slut,
you mangy old mutt, your time is up."
The bear snarled and sneered and drew back his lip.
He leapt at our hero and the battle began.
Bearwulf attacked, and let fly his axe.
He swung and he chopped as the bear clawed and chewed.
His armor held strong, but the bear showed no signs
of wounds he'd inflicted. Then the bear bragged,
"I'm magic, bitch! No weapons can hurt me."

That's when Bearwulf knew how he'd beat that bear.
He let fall his axe, and grabbed the brute's arm.
With the strength of a thousand trains, he pulled and he pulled.
The sinews of Oski tried but they failed.
The animal now ended at the shoulder.
Our hero brandished his foe's former arm
and he hacked and he hacked at that amputee bear,
Out flew the guts and goo, the insides of a bear.
He covered himself in ursine blood.

Oski's eyes shut, the townspeople cheered.
Bearwulf rode off as they rejoiced.
His shirt was stained with the blood of the bear
and though he washed and scrubbed, the red remained.
And that's why we wear the Cardinal:
it's the blood of the bears, beaten with their own arms.