The letter on the leather topped desk is an exit, a departure.
The ones below it are too.
Exeunt Omnes they say, but mean Eundum.
And every one is a birth certificate a statement of parentage bearing only a mother’s name.
In this old office of state, cooled against summer’s heat, by modern technical wiles, sweat stains my back and the shirt sticks to my skin as one by one they file in.
The Apologist, the smug Contender, the Neophyte. They smile and shrug and their words scurry in search of a sewer to sink into.
Lastly comes the Acolyte whom I ask ‘Kai Su Teknon?’ And the sweat on my back is blood from four dozen thrusts and more.
There are flags to bear aloft, symbols of hope and treasures and none have been nor ever will be white.
Post Scandala Relinquit
Poem by stuartcturnbull, picture from PublicDomainPictures on Pixabay
This poem is one written over the summer. It is part of a suite of poems that considers UK history and life from roughly the end of the Second World War through to an unknown future.
The suite's title is from the opening line of the fourth stanza in William Blake's 1808 poem Jerusalem.
The poem alludes to the way MP's, especially Cabinet Members, will let a Prime Minister know that the PM no longer holds their confidence.
Glossary:
Exeunt Omnes - All Leave - a phrase used to indicate actors leave the stage.
Eundum - Go - as in 'you should go'.
Kai Su Teknon - 'You too, son.' - One of the phrases attributed as Julius Ceasar's last words.
Post Scandala Relinquit - literally translates as 'leaves behind obstacles' suggesting difficulties a successor will find in taking the job. Also, to an English reader, it appears to indicate 'leaving after scandal'.