(for SK whose letter from Uganda provoked this ‘riposte’)
Dancing politicians are water dragons
We see their surface antics
But will never know who beats
Their drum in the watery depths
One leg after another like stilt-dancers
Their jointless limbs are oiled by graft
The grease in their palms is enough
To fill a thousand barrels
Dancing politicians sway
Like dizzy masquerades
Their masks mock the pitiless
Severity on our swindled faces
There is a spunk in their spin
Which unnerves the wind
A giddy pirouette which feigns
The circle of a thousand stunts
Dancing politicians fake
The dialect of the drum
The idiom which rides their lips
Is a lexicon of lies
There is no muse in their music
No sense beyond their sound
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