As so many practiced diplomats So too, your vaunted laureates Whose access to the higher rungs Of a cultural priesthood is hinged upon their flair for sophistry Well, I vote you the best equipped To shrink from speech that might suggest Any thoughts your key target market might Not have already signed off on and ratified And I vote you most likely to clutter your language with So much dead wood that no Amount of pruning will reveal Your intensive, protracted campaign of saying Nothing at all Your daydream of blacktie affairs at Rideau Hall Your acceptance speech Your dramatic pause And dont forget to thank those Bitter exmusicianscumembedded Rockjournalists frantically applauding The latest artistformerlyknownas Iconoclast, giddy from the fumes of a fresh defection Moping to the maudlin beat of a hat rack rhythm section A tacit understanding of mutual nonaggression Enjoyed by every nauseating donothing functionary Its not so much the incessant ruse of Assigning profound meaning to the Curios you decorate your sets with in Your extraordinarily mundane fictions Its the arrogance of the subtext The province of human affairs Is a field best left To dilettantes with an extraordinary gift For the feigning of paralysis Nothing at all, your daydreams Of blacktie affairs at Rideau Hall Your acceptance speech Sustained applause
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