In the wake of the news that Aberystwyth Town Council is spending £1,000 a year on a poet, Cambrian News editor Mick O'Reilly has penned a poem in place of his regular weekly editorial...
Our money is tight, taxes are high,
and hard-pressed people are wondering why
Aberystwyth spent funds to hire a poet?
A waste of good money and all of us know it!
Whose idea was this to hire a bard?
A waste of funds when times are so hard!
Your bins go unemptied, your streets unswept,
yet all we are given is leadership inept!
A thousand a year to pen a few words?
A move ridiculous, bordering the absurd.
Where once a joyous paddling pool stood
stands now a sandpit filled with cat turd.
A cavernous void at the harbour wall beckons;
a Ceredigion engineer obviously reckons
a few bags of gravel will be hard to dislodge
by the tides and time. But the job’s a bodge!
in Aberaeron hall sits Eifion the Great;
In his hands is sealed Ceredigion’s fate.
A land forgotten, overlooked and in ruin
as long as the council follow his tune.
Buildings stand empty as staff work from home
Supposedly still suffering from Covid syndrome.
The town spends money, an office to build,
gulls’ messes uncleaned, potholes unfilled!
This is not the time nor place for follies;
taxpayers have had it with all of your jollies.
Oh council! Oh mayor — thy vanity sublime —
reverse these errors in the swiftest of time!