Lennie Liver

I speak, my boy, of Lennie Liver
A most mistreated gland;
Also the body's biggest — or
He was when he began.

A very pleasant life he led
Contented as a cat
Distilling wastes from youthful blood,
Metabolising fat.

Then in his owner's sixteenth year
His agony began —
Eight vodkas and a whisky showed
The boy was now a man.

Had this been once or twice a week
All might have gone quite well;
But Lennie much against his will
Sadly began to swell.

A dozen drinks a day were more
Than even he could handle;
His owner with some shapely help
Burnt both ends of the candle.

Lennie, snug beneath the ribs,
Quite liked to loop the loop
With goodtime girls five times a week —
No sign of Brewer's Droop —

Or not at least for several years
Did atrophy set in.
Opportunity often knocked
But never quite got in.

Lennie, once a handsome, suave
Two kilo hunk of gland
Was pretty much all fibre now;
The end was near at hand.

His owner, fretting just a little
And hearing the prognosis,
Took five neat brandies twice a day
To settle his cirrhosis;

A tactic not surprising when
With brain long steeped in red
His owner's cortex lost each day
Two million soldiers dead.

Between the state of Lennie's health
And that of his poor master
One could not say which could be said
To be declining faster.

For one last time his owner called
Three nurses to his bed —
With Lennie now reduced to scars
They each pronounced him dead.

The vicar lauded at the grave
That ‘Spirit of Australia’ —
You drive a million drunken miles
And die of liver failure.

The moral of all this, my lad,
Is when you don long trousers
Pay no heed to tippled fools
Nor any ear to wowsers.

All things in moderation, lad,
And may your years be many.
Take no more than three a day
And spare a thought for Lennie.