The man who would be Canute.

By Malcolm Pugh
Posted Sunday, January 2, 2005

Blaring out over the sea.

There once was a man who was ultra cute,
Who convinced his Boss that he was really Canute,
That he could quell insurgance just with his voice,
And use of phrases this mentor deemed choice,
And Lo how it worked, the sea did not reach,
Little realising others were moving the beach,
And any dissenting tides that appeared,
Were carefully stained and receded quite smeared,
Any overt threat of a rogue wave to break,
Was flattened out early, and seen as a mistake,
But then the mentor was not there any more,
Leaving the King quite alone on the shore,
And faced with a renewed tide of dissent,
His words were drowned, and his clothing was rent,
For no one was working at shifting the sand,
No more illusions, no more sleight of hand,
Just a shadowy figure now seen in the light,
By a new sense of vision, a new sense of right,
Now lying crumpled at the mark of high tide,
Where the sea of opinion has tossed him aside,
Seen at the last as an empty rattling shell,
Devoid of substance, and bobbing in swell,
That dreamed a delusion of power so great,
And now is but humbled by truth and by fate.

About the Author
Ex systems programmer now dabbling in website. Do some search engine optimisation, self taught. Poetry is an old hobby.