I forgot that I had written this ages ago:
Comeuppance
I’m in a room with all the critics who dictate our taste—
Interior designers for the mentally infirm.
There’s not much contact with the eye, a tendency to squirm;
the literary critics seem a trifle janus-faced.
One blurts he likes a painting, then he rushes out, disgraced.
The others use their handkerchiefs as though he were a germ.
They shake their heads and titter and conclusively affirm
that planet Earth is just a pile of cosmic household-waste.
Then, Handel, Shakespeare, Leonardo, Molière appear
with Turner, Goethe, Pushkin, Woody Allen—still they come.
A stream of talent fills the room, Sam Johnson at the rear.
The critics superciliously pretend there’s no one here.
Now Dante points towards the door: “Go, hapless human-scum”,
and Robert Burns flies at the last and kicks him on the bum.
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