The Big Guns have beaten their hasty retreats.
Pubs with big rooms in marginal seats,
Will not see their like, for another few years,
Unless for a tasting of real ale beers.
Frail little old ladies will never again,
Have their faces transmitted on news broadcasts, when
They debated with vigour, with this one or that,
On matters important to them, and their cat.
The ward official, who remembered your name
And loudly brought you ‘a pint of the same’,
With puzzled expression, avoiding your gaze,
Sidles past to the Con Club, an aptly named place.
The farmers have harvested, from gates, walls and hedges,
The crop of good timber that carried the pledges
Of undying service they never would shirk.
One’s gone off to Parliament, the rest back to work.
Roger J Gould
Originally written in May 1992 and first published in Spring Breezes by Arrival Press 1997.