The sentry chairs declare to us our cares - a rock, a hard-place

Their duteous grace-note timbres coxcombing our ears

Would wow the supple will, pursue the shrewd, sow altered states

Their bent campaigning tuckets blazon, strike the tenor;

Now list! the audience is you – your norms are central

Their common gush of sentiment runs out egregiously

Floods brimming wealths, collects up concern’s chords - attend these speakers,

What fates are featured here! - admire the contents of the mouth.

The station the presenter platforms, crests, commands,

Nor never a shadow stirs reserved for Cromwell’s caveat

Grand auras shore illusion, performance steads outfacing tropes

This well-groomed suit entirely lives with its suggestive nonce

Lord, see the space of acres bare, the lights subdued - here’s music!

As if an opera coloratura; a balcony, Juliet,

Or some aplomb great Caesar passing-by his longed-for crown

The spotlight on the magister, with papers to propound

A swooping camera sways, careens, cascades, and raids the set

Doing a flying simulation; wow, now we’re in a jet!

Thrashing, the rhythmic bars, the tympani, clear ear’s catarrh

And all the while a marionette with upward valour stares

Large argument of stride, root still, stock attitudinising

As if a storm apprising; apprising upon a holy mountain

Or one of those old dummies, fingers out, in sixties shops

Say Cyril Lord himself, or mayhap Pirouette

Amongst the vast, its lights half-mast, here’s techniquest-

Type, tutelar, hard, bare, girders; the latest statement dragons

And dungeons; all’s a minimalist contraption declaration

That adds that needed awesome flash like gaudy jewellery

And then, what when the Masque of Entertainment vaporises

The lights come full up, very dreadful headline news flares torn

As if Stentor in horror, lathers, brandishes hot words

Or then again, to pause on men, the maid Britannia

Whatever; to look clever, you persever as severe,

The grave suave declamation is intoxicating

A viewer drops his raisins as the question enters whether

It’s Brexit Ben or Covid Bill revealed tonite

Behold a generous table sweeps across a lateral axis

Such large redundancy as to impress one blarney-blind;

An interview; the principal and one or two jaw-waggers

Big players sat sententiously, but dwarfed, by wide-wood bound

The overwhelming furniture extends escape for air

Here’s room enough soaks integers of exponential words

And were the world delivered or relieved a morsel measure

By parleys such as this – hey holiday! - bring on the senior divas!