The Slynog took umbrage and a pot of Earl Grey
and envied the surname Gorringe

not only from cricket and leaders in war
but because it rhymes nicely with ‘orange’.

The policemen took lumps while the Sylnog took two.
Unlike them, he dropped his in his tea.

A broadsheet account gave the Slynog a clue
on the heights of pols’ audacity:

He twigged now how bravery among politicians
comes after the fact, and the skirts

among which they hide till the shooting dies down
are the curtains from whence they then flirt

with the Owners and Losers, society’s classes,
of which pols pretend they are lords

while knowing they’re not, and in fear of the masses
of both groups: their stones, cash and swords.