Baldies are stud-muffins
Surely it’s well known
The laurel crown on Nero’s nut
Is there to fawn and brown-
Nose a way to pay
The muses’ loved-up tribute
To ‘Tyrannosaurus’ Rex
‘Hail Nero’ is the next
Expression with a Trump
On cattle-horn
By which his chosen few
Facilitate salute
Small silver coins inscribed
‘Nero master of music
Patron elect of poets’
Are minted and deployed –
No irony attends
Extolling an emperor’s virtue
Nor should our coins
Court much controversy to say e.g.
‘Caligula undiagnosed
Sadistic psychopath’
Nor ‘Shopaholic
Lucius manic orgy-freak’
Coins unlike your modern News
Hold the front page headline –
Too cautiously in Nero’s case
When Rome consumed by fire became
Hot Topic
But if your newsprint disappears
How can you send warning
Monsters with slot-machine souls
Rule you and your remaining screaming media?
What will hold
Your greasy take-aways?
By then you will have ‘had your chips’
In ‘lashings’ of salt and vinegar
.
Bernard Saint
Illustration: Claire Palmer
.