Ode (after O’Shaughnessy)

Are we the movers and shakers

here on this flyblown patch of ground

or just a bunch of egotists and fakers

playing in an unremarked playground?

A brotherhood of mendicant rhyme-makers

weighing up the fool’s gold that we’ve found;

a garrison of garrulous piss-takers

keeping no one but our selfish selves spellbound?

The cold truth is that while we write our ditties

real labourers are building Chinese cities;

that while you penned your tedious life story

some IT guys have soaked up all the glory.

We claim one dreaming man can change the world,

a single voice can upset any crown,

but both those lies have gradually unfurled

and all we built was this absurd ghost town.

We, with all our dreaming and our singing,

ignore the fact that we are not Shakespeare

for something in our formative upbringing

means truth’s the one thing we don’t want to hear.

Instead we’ll wallow in handwringing

and pray the audience will reappear;

we keep on writing, always vaguely clinging

to the notion that a poet knows no fear.

I hope you’re moved or shaken as you read.

I even hope you’re feeling slightly blue

What is this urge of mine? This muse? This need?

The truth is that I don’t know what to do.

Tonight I feel I should perhaps concede

I cannot change the world, a crown, or you,

but tomorrow is another day indeed

and I’m sure I’m on the verge of my breakthrough!