The waves a-quiver deliver ecumenical news

“We’re all in this….” a constant hiss of

Light white noise

The lathers of the day are brought you by

The big fellows

Broadcast concern - one’s destined urn lies near

Fillets of fear, with chips tossed, smothered

In small beer

Hearken: the burden is your home’s the secure harbour

Beware where else you go, death has his entrance there

Insuperable barrier: is you might just be

His hosting carrier: Legionnaire!

The catacombs of home loom, your attendant Purgatory

“Nor am I out of it” quoth Mephistopheles

“Excuse my germs, I have to use the lavatory”

The loo roll has writ on it all the ABC of OCD

Imprinted on each slice

A government health warning to enhance

Our way of life?

No one is not to blame, its conscience lies with you

The science and the politics have done all they can do

Now look around there is no other ground which fairly

Bears this blame

For Nature, she would be a fatuous fall-guy

She has no sympathies, nor listens to,

Is barren ground and heartless

To put on this low show of morbid, sordid, day-inflicted

Half-statistics tango

Set on a floor, expertly scored, and fascinates when played

Each number wanders differently, songs different refrains

A different tempo, measure, gait, finesse, and metronome

The judges – yes, it’s “Strictly”! - can’t make up their minds

The tube of information overspills so richly

These fixated times

The dancing dates proliferate, expire, and new ones

Enter

Whatever the dole of dolour dancing; that’s the right percentage!

And do not miss those trompetes funebrae; the begging tins

Held out by every Sector Hector asking more, more pity,

Wrung hands held out for public wealth to pour more in

Hands gathering shining ducats “Cross my palm with silver”

Our houses are our hearses, we are nailed down in them listening

To rueful bald appeals of cold-skilled asks for christenings

Of silver, rubies, gold - embezzlings one hundred fold

The clink of winking winnings

The nation as a whole is sinking into melancholy

Those notional gold beggars are themselves no longer jolly

The instruments of evidence make protest of all this folly