We May Yet Hope

We tried our best
and believed
we taught our children
sensitivity, intelligence,
appreciation toward
the benefits of hard work
and a fine aesthetic sense.

The shock!
to discover
on the dart board
passed so many times,
never before noticed,
stapled photographs
at points of 
highest benefit,

She to whom
we owe allegiance
smiling deathlessly,
her face pockmarked
by unerringly
directed darts.

And there they are,
the Prime Minister
and all those elected
to high posts in government;
irremediably scarred,

barely recognizable.
Does this behaviour
defy patriotism?
Have we raised a
viper's nest of anarchists?

(c.1979)