Alexander Pope – poems 2 die for

RIGID

when British satire
became
(Oh, what’s the kerfuffle?)
self-
satire
(losing its old
job description)

and British comedy got
its priorities straight
putting its foot
right up its
mouth

when Goon and Python hilarity
cowed in the shadows
onset
of Orwell reality

the laughter of the gods
truly
deserted this place

left it to sink with
traditional flawed false graciousness
under the waves, get
swallowed by
ocean, reign of
old stuck-
up unconscious

spirit
of dead gravity much
bemoaned by Pope

in his assault on all things
vapid, and without
substance yet
weighed-
down by Dunce
rigidity

most righteous of true
rigidities such kingdom
could ever
know

sound
echoing sense

but what if there
is no sense

rule of your nonsense
Mr Pope
descending into
the entropy
of brute power

I decline
to add

for why say anything
when gets so grossly filtered

crushed by the imposition
superimposition
of hideous, ruling
mythology

under which stone rubble
words die, asphyxiate
cannot breathe

Thank God that guy Pope
never put me in his Dunciad
or any other
South African poets there
for that matter
which is a bit
beyond belief

long since Roy Campbell
Wayzgoosed everybody
from Cape Town to
Durban to Maritzburg
Joburg and Pretoria

enough idiots with pens
and processors around now
to make
any such revival
a royal satirical feast.