Preamble: my contribution to this week's Rhymers' theme "fire".

 

Wouldn’t it be easier to recognise a liar

If caught telling porkies, their pants really caught fire?

As a warped form of justice, it would be rather fun

To see a guilty con man get singed around the bum.

The value of honesty would rapidly be learned

If every untruth told led to buttocks getting burned.

 

Profiteering salesmen persuading us to spend

Would have to cut the hyperbole or risk a crispy (rear) end.

Many politicians would have to change their game

To prevent their seats in Parliament from bursting into flame.

With all this Brexiteering engineered to fool a nation

Enough heat’s generated to replace a power station.

And climate change deniers would surely burn so hot

They’d end up contributing to that they say is not.

 

There’s one flaw in this plan to promote more honest dealings

What about the white lies told to protect people’s feelings?

Sometimes truth hurts too much and is twisted to be kind

How then to hide the smoke signals arising from behind?

 

And what about the poets, whose art is to create?

Some form of dispensation we much surely allocate:

Signed authorisation from the office of truth screening

The phrase “poetic licence” then takes on a whole new meaning.

 

So clearly my incendiary idea is just a joke,

In reality where would we be with backsides up in smoke?

And although I find my little rhyme is really quite inspired,

I’d best not show it to my boss or else I might get fired.