Get Your Premium Membership

Read Lesley Poems Online

NextLast
 

Dumbing Lesley Ann Down

(Lesley Ann Down was an actress in
the Golden Age of live TV drama.)

We live in an age of midgets.
There are no seers now, only lookers,
no values left, apart from digits.
Cash is the hook, and we’re all hookers,
no Carmen Joneses, only Bridgets.

Did you have to learn the equation
(“have to”? – what an odd suggestion!)
which represents acceleration?
It’s printed now, beside the question.
No gravity, just gravitation.

Subtitle writers, now, can’t spell,
and language teachers know no grammar.
When banks are hiring tellers, well,
in Alabaster, Alabama,
they sing aloud, “You Never Can Tell”.

Let’s get somewhat more sarcastic.
Our carpenters just never get wood.
Today our craftsmen just squirt mastic,
then, as any moron could, 
they clip on bits of precut plastic.

We’ve got police (I like this best!)
who, far from being Texas Rangers,
have never passed exams or tests,
and can’t, by law, face any dangers,
or run rash risks, like make arrests.

No Richard Rodgers, Buddy Holly,
no more Stoller (as in Lieber),
but ‘tis the season to be jolly –
after all, there’s Justin Bieber!
Hence, loathéd melancholy!

Copyright © Michael Coy

NextLast



Book: Radiant Verses: A Journey Through Inspiring Poetry