Disbelief stands in the dock
As the Prosecution drones away
Our Learned Friend Stacey Farquar-Lacey tugs his forelock
Says “Your Worship, I give you Exhibit A”
An art installation black as night
Full of squashed insects not a speck of white
Sends a buzz through the gallery, fingers click iPhone keys,
As Farquar-Lacey faced the jury, he said:
“What you see is not meant to be literal, it's metaphysical, visceral
This is a door into mankind's soul, a semaphore, a portal (you could see he was on a roll)
Like forgiveness from the abused, through this blackness transcendence lies
Yet I put it to you that the accused has called this masterpiece ‘a bunch of flies'!”
Defence rises amid the commotion, his sepulchral tone full of resignation
Posits a hypothetical notion, says “I want you to use your imagination:
What if spin doctors are quacks and really black is not the new black?
What if Marilyn Monroe was just some chick and Citizen Cane was just some flick?
What if Finnegan's Wake's a fake by a talented flake
And Like A Rolling Stone was plucked from where the sun never shone
And that eye rhyme was just bad poetry; consider this possibility:
What if a bunch of flies was just a bunch of lies?”
The case was all over the press
The judge was grave in his address
He said: “We can't have this sort of thing here!
You'd threaten society's fragile balance
Politics wouldn't be a career
Promotion would be decided on talent
Imagine publishers looking for brilliance
Not marketability
We'd have to pump financial a**istance
Into the self-help industry
Lifestyle gurus would be out of work
The rich wouldn't have a right of birth
Altruism would be free of perks
The meek might even inherit the earth
Why do we put cynics in the corner
Where fortune's favour's not bequeathed?
This is the natural order:
It's better to lie than not believe.”
And so the case ended
Disbelief was suspended.