The Politics of Rhyming

Our task shouldn't have been that, hard. Twenty couplets on what we hate, followed by 10 on why we love what we hate. Unfortunately it's difficult to write about what you hate on the spur of the moment, not without something to set me off. And unfortunately the party conferences are over for the year and so my anger at the political spectrum for remaining so homogeneous and sickeningly sycophantic has long since passed. Yet I suppose I had no choice but to pursue the thing that I hate the most in this world, politics and politicians. (Which is not to say that I hate them an awful lot, just that it's one of the few things I get truly passionate about.)

So I made a first attempt.

I hate their pressed suits

And pointless little disputes

I hate their preening disdainful looks

As if we’ve never read a book

I hate their avoidance and slippery wordplay

Why is that they can never mean what they say?

I hate the way they ignore the bad

As if it’s just some passing fad

I hate it that they always lie

And seem to only answer, fie fie fie

I hate the way they mock and sneer

And rant about those who’re not from ‘here’

                 

I hate that they ignore what they want

And claim to fix that broken levant

I hate that they take no shame

In seeking glory and high fame

Which sucked, as you can tell. So talking to a certain someone who shall remain a nameless Cambridge student I tried again, to slightly better success. 

There is no craven craft as vile

No font of more spurious bile

Than the politicians smug grin

Trying to be that most ugly thing

Of amiable friendship and authority

Whilst sneering at the minority

And giving us all happy platitudes

And hope we don’t see the multitudes

Of beaten and broken men and women

Forced down to their knees time and again

Who cares for the downtrodden masses

When the rich have their opera glasses

And pandering fools to help them around

To blot from below that piteous sound

Of a conscience crying in the gutter

As hopes of good die down and sputter

The good go in, and the bad come out

A revolving door to turn the devout

From men of vision and principle

To creatures most abominable

That power corrupts cannot be disputed

Yet it is those who have none that are muted

And dragged forwards to the block

Of public opinions rage and shock

That men in spotless pinstripe suits

Play upon like infernal lutes

To marshal the ignorant and hate filled people

To hang their neighbours from the nearest steeple

And ignore their betters wide reaching failings

Lest they go behind those crowded iron railings

But what truly makes me sick

Is that we all put up with it

That nefarious deed to rapturous applause

Is not seen as a rallying cry to the cause

To take back that house from liars and sycophants

Who in our blood make their dark covenants

Why do we not demand our voices

Act with conscience and not invoices

Or maybe in that house the iniquitous rots set in too long

And should be torn down by our plebeian mob and throng

I still think this one has issues, mostly to do with consistency and the sometimes erratic nature of how my thoughts went. Then again anger and rage are very rarely rational. I also think I could stand to add in a bit more imagery, perhaps trim a few couplets and expand some of the other ones into trios of couplets on the same theme.

But that will likely wait till tomorrow if I have time after writing about the things that I love about politics, and there are surprisingly enough one or two things that I do love about politics, which is I suppose the point, the duality of emotion being what it is we often feel our hatred towards a thing made stronger by our love for some part or parts of it.

And with that I am off to bed, and will leave with a small snippet of a story/prologue that I'm working on at the moment: "Golden arcs, like cherubim dancing in fire, lit the sky above them in testament to the force unleashed in this last argument of two kings."

Edit: Apologies for the formatting here, but myself and this blogging program are having a slight difference of opinion when it comes to transfering things from word and not adding bloody double line spacings. I shall endeavour to fix it soonish though.

: 14 Oct 2008 00:20 |  Comments (1) |  Report a problem