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Out in the suburbs on Saturday night

The workaday Batman gets drunk and starts fights

Costume too tight around midriff and ass

The Batmobile running on unleaded gas

Batts has been living out of the back seat

Since Missus Batman threw him into the street

The Batdoor no longer accepts the Batkey

The Batcredit card's maxed out permanently

The Batkids are staying with BatNan and Pop

The beers keep on coming and no-one says stop

Once a hero to someone, there's none left to ask,

And failure's invisible under a mask

But with each tilt of beer glass we see plain old Bruce:

Middle aged; hopes forgotten; expecting abuse

And when the bar's closed and we're facing the dawn,

Batman of suburbia passes out on the lawn




Lee Battersby is the multi-award winning author of over 60 short stories and poems in the US, Europe, and Australia. His collection 'Through Soft Air' was released by Prime Books in 2006. He lives in Western Australia, and maintains a weblog at http://battersblog.blogspot.com.
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