NEEDLESS TO SAY

Sylvia,
    she whom,
Lady
    Lazarus
style,
I had resurrected from
the
    dead

warned me
of the day
political retribution
would find me

the day
a poem got
me
burned
or stoned

I laughed off
her horrified concern

without a
single
reader
what outraged crowd?
what danger?
what damage?

a single solitary stalwart
sold on the truth
of the established order
or turning up
to avenge
some imagined slight
I had long
forgotten about

turning up
with twig in
one hand
pebble in
the other
(always best
to keep
one’s
options open)

but
needless to say
the stone missed
and branch

refused
to take flame
.

Published by Damian Garside