Hans discovered that he could speak                                                                   with a bear who turned up in his flat last week,                                            as once he got past his initial dread,                                                                     he understood all that he said.                                                                                They hit it right off, like lickety-split,                                                                   just laughing and joking and shootin’ the shit…                                             ’till the bear got hungry and ate his head                                                         and now poor Hans is dead.

***This is another illustration/poem that didn’t make the cut for our new book, ‘Bludgeon the Clown’.  It’s easy to see why the image didn’t make it (it’s not very good).  It was originally commissioned for a story in Analog Magazine back in 2008…but I had hoped the publisher would find a way to keep my amazing poem in the book.  Oh well, that’s out of my hands – and the whole thing is coming along splendidly.  -Marsha