O Ye masters of the ship of state whose incompetence couldn’t Captain a winkle barge; preening yourselves for photo-opportunities and mouthing asinine platitudes to the cameras.
O Ye cheesy-grinned Highnesses (Highness?) No problem paying your rent then.
O Ye celebrities who flaunt their self-satisfaction to a sea of hopeless wannabes.
O Ye shifty councillors who dream of Lutyenesque Town-Halls while closing down local libraries and selling off children’s playing fields.
O Ye complacent Government Ministers who wear the gravitas of responsibility like out-of-their class con-men.
O Ye Fat-cat bankers with obscene bonuses who play roulette with the pension funds of the poor. (When, or more to the point how, did you obtain the right to do this?)
O Ye Pontificating Prelates who wear silly hats and speak in funny voices when talking to God.
O Ye prancing pop-stars wallowing in the limelight of your brief moment of glory with all the talents of an ant.
O Ye big-time bimbos famous for the size or shape of their arse.
O Ye smug and mighty oligarchs sun lounging on their ‘bigger-than-anyone-else’s’ yachts amid bevies of long-legged bikinis.
And all ye among the ‘Great and Good’.
Look on Shelley’s great Sonnet and despair.
Ozymandias
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Dave Tomlin
Art Nick Victor