This poem was ‘inspired’ by a recent AGM of a Poetry Society, when the Committee suggested a name change.
PLEASE CLICK ON THE TAB ABOVE TO HEAR THE POEM
It had a simple trigger,
someone suggested change –
another name, some different words.
From behind their table barricade,
the Committee eyed the restless poets
and sensed the coming fusillade.
A pre-planned blitzkrieg of abuse
indiscriminately fired from eager jaws
by disciples of the accuracy of words.
Wordfire whipped the meeting to a frenzy
igniting a shared indulgent ecstasy
and burning past achievements in its wake.
Tempers spiked sharply
the agitators bayed
‘Deceitful’ and ‘Fraudulent’,
words tossed like grenades
at the shocked disarmed Committee,
who prayed in vain
for a rein on loosed emotions.
Members clamoured for ‘Democracy’
– but held debate at bay.
The Pilot slowly called for calmer sniping
and the Committee were riddled in the fray.
Later he declared their reluctance to form targets
the causal weakness that had lost the day.
Trust fell first casualty of the trauma –
self-justification a dividing drama,
but the victim of the ambush was Poetry,
which lost the chance to open tethered wings.
