The Weekly Muse

The cold sets in, the outlook's bleak,

Recession jitters grow each week,

George Soros forecasts only gloom...

A candle gutters in my room.

Wilde's monument - a milestone.

We're quick to recognise our own

Forgiven then? Hip hip! Two cheers.

It's only been a hundred years.

So can we take it next time that

Another miscreant's on the mat

Their work might serve to mitigate

Before they face the magistrate?

And when the wretch is crucified,

His vices broadcast countrywide,

The drugs, dishonesty, or shame

Of love that dare not speak its name,

They'll slap his wrist and buy him lunch,

Saying: "Artists - you're a flakey bunch.

A goat? Three Es? What are you like?

Your statue's here. Now on yer bike!"

At least I hope that's what they'll say

When my case sees the light of day.

"... in Surrey. Such a quiet estate.

It's neat, discreet and v sedate.

A game of golf, a G&T,

A stroll around the shrubbery,

And on alternate Saturdays

We play bridge with the Pinochets.

They haven't been that long round here.

She's very nice. It's not too clear

What he did in his last career.

She said he made things disappear."

The Turner Prize was much more fun:

An actual painting of someone.

A welcome change for plebs like me

For whom art is a mystery.

The artist's paint was quaint, of course,

But cheap and from an endless source

Though hardly fragrant-loose or firm.

I hope he thanked the pachyderm.

Five-thousand-odd light-years away

A baby star beams out a ray.

The region where new stars are born

Is not called Vorgon III or Xzorn

But R-C-W-5-8,

A name far more commensurate

With being a civil service form

Than venue for a cosmic storm.

Our council tax and rail fares up?

I bought some absinthe - fill your cup.

Drink it down and drain the bottles,

Sod tomorrow's axolotls!