The Comeback Kid

The Comeback Kid had been agog to hear

His Covid leadership at Number Ten

Exonerated—rather than appear

Chaotic in a non-Churchillian den

Of toxic indecisiveness, which let

Matt Hancock overpromise while BJ

Escaped to Kent, the better to forget

Briefs warning him of danger on its way.

A tale of handshakes in a patient ward,

Complacency and aimlessness saw him

Kill time (a month of it, as cases soared),

Keep partying and legislate by whim …

It’s doubtful any comeback stratagem

Delivers him an encore as PM!

 

Mike Mesterton-Gibbons is a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Florida State University who has returned to live in his native England. His poems have appeared in Autumn Sky Poetry Daily, the Creativity Webzine, Current Conservation, the Ekphrastic Review, Grand Little Things, Light, Lighten Up Online, the New Verse News, Oddball Magazine, Rat’s Ass Review, WestWard Quarterly and other journals. The poem was prompted by the Guardian story, “Covid report lays bare Boris Johnson’s complacency and lack of leadership.”