The Second Term (With apologies to William Butler Yeats)
Yearning and yearning for a comforting liar
The people will not hear the truth, nor trust the truth-teller;
Stories fall apart, the centre is not real;
Mere dull geometry to gull a duller world.
Our poll-driven narrative is loosed, but everywhere
The target audience refuses to be wowed.
The best shun social-media, while the worst
Still tweet with manic imbecility.
Surely some course-correction is in hand?
Surely it’s time to take our Second Term in hand!
Our Second Term! Hardly are those words out
Than grainy video-clips, recorded in the Eighties,
Download to my device. Images of conferences past;
A shape with Jim Anderton’s body and Matt McCarten’s head;
A gaze blank and pitiless as Tova O’Brien’s
Is holding a media conference, while all around it
Reel journos of the indignant Fourth Estate.
The cellphone screen goes blank; but now I know
That declaring “They are Us”
And stamping out the coronavirus
Were just the first rough drafts of an historical drama
Still struggling with its author to be born.
Chris Trotter
2020
You have too much time on your hands Chris. But here is my contribution to a poetic thread.
Jacinda stood on a burning deck.
Picking her nose like mad.
Rolling it up into little balls
And flicking it at her Judith Collins.
She came.
She saw.
She smiled.
The banks and corporations and 1%ers were happy for a while.
The smile morphed into a frown.
She left.
She left the country bin a worse state than before.
Her personal wealth increased enormously.
Mission Accomplished.
The markets collapsed.
The economy collapsed.
The environment collapsed.
It was all for a handful of baubles.
She left the country in a worse state than before [she arrived].
Let them eat kindness.
you win
“The Miracle?”
The miracle
Not in my life
Has the god
Visited in his feet
You can’t be serious
Remember
Let’s do this
Let’s keep moving
Making up jokes
Is no longer fun
For this written play
By whom.
For our Covid Queen?
The castle and
The heavenly staircase
Has shown itself,
The portcullis and moat is no more
Storm the gates, the barricades
Shake the EQC State to it’s roots!
Rebuild NOT from the past
But FOR the bottom dwellers,
And see the miracle in flesh
This is godpower Princess!
Will you set fire to the fire economy,
Finance, Insurance and Real Estate?
Orr will u sit and watch the table overturned . .
Once again . . .
“The Miracle?”
The miracle
Not in my life
Has the god
Visited in his feet
You can’t be serious
Remember
Let’s do this
Let’s keep moving
Making up jokes
Is no longer fun
For this written play
By whom.
For our Covid Queen?
The castle and
The heavenly staircase
Has shown itself,
The portcullis and moat is no more
Storm the gates, the barricades
Shake the EQC State to it’s roots!
Rebuild NOT from the past
But FOR the bottom dwellers,
And see the miracle in flesh
This is godpower Princess!
Will you set fire to the fire economy,
Finance, Insurance and Real Estate?
Orr will u sit and watch the table overturned . .
Once again . . .
It is an ancient barrister,
And he stoppeth one of three.
“By thy long grey beard and glittering eye,
Ah sod it…
The world is on fire, and I have only two hands,
But the fucking left keep making demands.
They hold me to imagined ideals,
Their faint praise now replaced by squeals.
I made no promises like I did before,
And the electorate replied and gave me more.
My base is now of a different hue,
A little less Green, a lot more blue.
Why can’t you simple folk see,
The choice was me or fucking Judy?
Poetry was never my thing…
You done best by me.
D J S
Welcome back, DX5 Belloc … the men that were boys when I was a boy
Shall sit and drink with ye
Welcome back, DX5 Belloc … the men that were boys when I was a boy
Shall sit and drink with ye
Thank you. Appreciate the comments.
Was just hoping that I did not sound too much like lyrics from a David Brent song.
Brilliant, Trotter, brilliant. “manic imbecility”… “pitiless as Tova O’Brien’s”…. outstanding.