Before Polling
By the day before polling, all speeches
Are spoken, the arguments won or lost,
Promises promised, fingers firmly crossed.
Meanwhile, common experience teaches,
Manifestos are just works of fiction,
No matter how detailed, or blessedly brief,
They require suspension of disbelief.
Everyone who has a predilection
To regard suffrage as a precious gem,
Might consider the parties and decline
To cast the pearl of their vote for the swine
Who have all consistently misled them.
Day after polling, as things are arranged,
Voters will find that very little’s changed.
D. A.