by Jerome Betts

7 May 2015: UK General Election
23 June 2016: UK EU Referendum
8 June 2017: UK General Election

They claim that wood pulp now is fighting for its throne,
A victim of the digit’s dreaded squeeze,
But in election years it more than holds it own
And costs deliverers, as well as trees.

A party worker’s task is something most would shun
When forcing flimsy paper through a slit
Far tighter than that fabled bleep-bleep of a nun
Thanks to the insulation lining it.

Dodging demented dogs is one affliction more
On garden paths, or hidden in the house,
As bits of human finger, sauced with floods of gore,
Give pleasure like a cat finds in a mouse.

Some voters, too, are hostile, snarling cheap abuse,
Or ripping up the sheet in public sight.
Irrational, emotional, confused, obtuse!
Lost souls, incapable of seeing light!

Yet still the activists dispense persuasive print,
Though some might wish for drones or other means
So those who’ve plodded through their third successive stint
Could sit the next one out in front of screens.