Oh, dear - this type of challenge is compulsive. It's such a simple, yet enticing, limit which just sits there cheekily beckoning one to have another go - like a coconut shy in a fair ground. Quite possibly with as few winning results - or maybe, more satisfyingly, like that lovely crockery smashing stall in the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. Anyway - I promise, like any helpless recidivist - this third one will be my last.
A BOTTOM LINE
With eyes set on Iraq’s oil-sodden plains
and shielded from the honest light of day,
that man we had elected lied away,
convinced such oleaginous dark stains
rich dividends would pay. Certain no pains
he’d bear, past trifling slights in Erskine May,
he treated truth, an extra in his play,
as evanescent as some desert rains
whose vapoured drops, on voters burnt like leaves,
tempted their trust, ’neath shock and awe’s twin suns,
until their shrivelled hopes, like rotten sheaves,
exhaled, in vast disgust, betrayal’s breath.
’Twas ever thus, when cheating lucre runs
to hoard power’s pension - yet he’ll not cheat death.
My thanks to Jayne for posting it all in the first place.
Nigel
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