The Weekly Muse

"The train is not on Platform One..."

Complete. I dare you. Place a bet

The train is not on Platform One

Because they haven't built it yet.

The reason is that rolling stock

Removed due to decrepitude

Was not replaced by newer stuff

On time, due to ineptitude.

It's either that, or else they've made

A point we may have missed:

You can't say that the trains are crap

Unless the trains exist.

An Ancient Rome equivalent

Of Greenwich Dome and Tesco's

Was Nero's Golden Palace

With its subterranean frescoes,

And - apart from lakeside brothels,

Which our modern planners balk at -

The place was rich in gimmicks

For the visitor to gawk at.

And here the encrustations

Caused by damp had covered over

Some signatures an inch apart -

De Sade and Casanova.

Researchers who've uncovered

This graffiti on the wall

Are waiting for the scholars

Who may verify the scrawl.

For if they met, their common ground

Defies imagination;

But I'd like to see a transcript

Of those roues conversation.

Which leads us on to violence

Where opinion's quite specific

That the bloodshed on the TV

Is now "fun" and not "horrific".

This tallies rather scarily

With features in the news

On certain Nato generals

And the jargon that they use,

Eg, "in-theatre assets"

Which implies a veiled relish

Of the damage they're inflicting

With the missiles they embellish.

And caught between such gauntlets

As the Kosovo "solution",

The UK plants' carcinogens

And other nice pollution,

As much as just the notion of it

May stick in your throat,

Perhaps its time to reassess

What Nostradamus wrote.