Poem by Mike Gallagher (Ireland)

Published in The Ofi Press issue 50

The Poet's Consort

Too many launches, growing paunches

from drinking wine;

just a subtle cough, dear,

ever so soft, dear,

when I reach page forty nine

of my ever so selectable,

my ever so delectable, collection.

Oh, not another reading - 

vocal chords depleting -

just a little clap, dear,

what y'mean, it's crap, dear;

I’ll have you realise,

this poem won first prize,

judged by my dearest friend.

Ah, another workshop over,

so why don't you just hover

in the background, my dear,

let's meet my fawning fans, dear,

feigning to understand

my verbal dexterity, my command

of the complexity of alliteration and allusion.

Those books on the table, all of them unsold,

not an uncommon story, if truth were to unfold,

my publishers do their best, my dear,

but if in the end they can't,

our losses will be covered

by an arty Council grant.

you see, we're in the inner sphere, dear,

we fill the forms right, dear,

we’re no small beer, dear

we know the right people, dear,

most of them are here, dear,

sipping Chardonnay, lipping Beaujolais,

networking:

professors, confessors, obsessors

champagne socialists, chauvinists,

poetry czars, self appointed,

poetry stars, self anointed,

the loquacious, the salacious, the audacious,

rhymers, old timers, new age slammers,

cliques, pricks, prigs,

the awful, the doleful, the soulful, the woeful,

all here, my dear,

quaffing, faffing, bitching, laughing,

moaning, droning on,

I feel that they’re ignoring me,

yer man at the back, he’s snoring, see

I feel so underrated here,

feel I’m not celebrated, dear,

we’re out of here, dear,

fetch my folder, dear,

come, burnish this lustrous ego.