13 October 2000, 844 words
Worried about Cabinet notes falling into the wrong hands, I have learned that Prime Minister Basdeo Panday, a former thespian, has decided to conduct all Cabinet meetings in blank verse. The idea is that, even if the notes are leaked, nobody except female secondary school students would understand them. This information, and the following transcript of last week's meeting, was given to me by a confidential source which I cannot reveal because he - or she - doesn't exist.
Panday:
Friends, Indians, Africans, and others:Lend me thine ears. It has come to mine own
That our deliberations in this august chamber
Hath sometime been leaked by dribbling tongues.
In this rum-roti time, it meets us ill
That the unwashed public should be privy
To such wiles, stratagems and unvarnished crap
That oft echoes in these refurbished walls,
To say nothing of the gilded ceiling.
Whereof have I resolved that our treatings
Be conducted in the Bard's blank accents,
That so richly echo in mine rolling r's -
A pretty egg hatched in the gleaming pate
Of yon nostrilled Job, so that if leak'd
To the damnéd press, shall yet stay private
Since all journalists are unread swine.
Job:
Worthy Prime Minister, let thy heart squatWithin the hooped throne of thy ribs
Plumly as Cicero on his privy
When he, gorged on roast fowl and stewéd prunes,
Did disgorge his bowels in sighed relief.
(Aside) Yet must I conceal the principal aim
Of this hollow shell: not to undrum
The stirruped anvils of our enemies,
But that I might be described as pretty,
An adjective that in more cultured times
Meant one who was clever, which I am, aye,
Yet which means naught if I am not pretty.
Ramesh:
I gladly welcome our discourses' new modeWhich have remov'd that gargantuan burden
Of proper pronouncement and grammar
From my forkéd tongue, split even before
My sudden turnabout on human rights
(A reversal more apparent than real).
In this Olde English, my argument go be
That green verbs is correct, yea, and mayhap,
In this new freedom, of unruléd speech,
Even the pretzel of my mouth shall untwist.
Panday:
Our three-month AG, one-act PM's blushDazzles with tooth; we give thee leave to gush.
Kamla:
Most honour'd Prime Minister, my commandIs thy wish. The leaks whereof you speak
Have greatly concerned me also. On the platform
Last fortnight, I spoke of water gushing freely
In pipes that had for years groaned dry
Like the rattle of a man whose dying throat
Draws one dusty breath and exhales no more.
I said then, and I say again: only one pipe
Do I know, and that readily gushes forth
When my sink doth require scouring.
Panday:
His prisséd expression shouts anxious fear,As though speech were a snorling diarrhea.
Him have I traded for the insurance,
Of kinky hair and monied assurance;
His exit punctuated by the full stop
Of noisome revelations of hangéd plots
To homosexualise this nation by law,
Making his ire hot, his nerve raw.
Pastors are by him pleased, humanists shamed -
I call Minister Assam, well-named.
Assam:
Prithee, in sooth, my highest-flown praisesCannot touch this star-measured leader
Besides whom Ali Baba's heap'd jewels
Would pale and grow dim, like a puffed candle,
In the blinded light of his gaseous soul.
Methinks speech serves a higher purpose
Than the mere stopping of unvalvéd leaks.
For nigh three and two years have I struggled
To bring pomp and decorum to our House
By tripping accents and melifluous delivery
Of words weighty and recondite.
Almost alone did the strung bow of my tongue
Let fly the fine shaft of feathered speech, but
The mocking media deflected me!
Yet now that the Minister Prime hath sanctioned
My eloquent proclivities, doubt not
Even more melodious lyrics shall sound
Venting from this same wind-chiméd seat!
Moreover -
Panday:
You Assam! Tie thy twee tongue,Ere we unmanned by thy accent become;
I call Carlos, lately proved a bad John,
To tell us of his Mother of all Cons.
Carlos:
My shovelled visage, like silvered glass,Doth perfectly reflect my natural gift
For forking pitch and pitching manure.
With this momentous task I am entrusted,
To pave o'er the sins of thy regime
With smooth black pitch that shall gloss
Ms Universe millions, dog rice ditto,
Iniquitous Inncogen, desal plant,
Ish's expensive, expansive expansion,
And the bloated belly of swallowed rights -
With roads smoother than baby's bottoms
Shall I dim people's unbulbed memories
And, blinded by the rising sun, their X
Shall ring our register with votes black
As the pitch that I have pulled o'er their eyes,
That we may spend till two thousand and five.
Panday:
So said, so done, our main task laid forth,Our luxury cars and homes are bought;
A people that prefer pipe to principle,
Pitchéd roads to proper Parliament,
Shall find our hustlings invincible!
We offer them race, religion and rum,
And so pluck victory, for depend pon't:
Ours is a democracy of the dumb.
Copyright©2000 Kevin Baldeosingh