NO BUSINESS LIKE SNOW BUSINESS

I missed Monday's Open Mic due to an unusual event in Guernsey's weather calendar, the arrival of snow.
It's not something we have to contend with often: once every four or five years on average, but when it happens the island grinds to a standstill. 
Schools close, shops become denuded of provisions and businesses limp along with only those few die-hard staff who manage to brave our treacherous, ungritted roads.
I'd planned to read this bit of light verse on Monday because the chosen subject for Open Mic was "Words". 
Maybe I'll give it an airing next month if the snow's gone by then.  

WORDS

Spray-can taggers in the street
 

obey the law of graffiti.


Musicians, with a hip-hop beat,


legitimise depravity.


Con-men, chat-show hosts and hacks
 

stick words, like daggers, in our backs

.

 The Internet, email, smart phones, 

breed words that wildly reproduce


like cancer-cells within our bones ...


a narrative, verbose, diffuse.


Words, nowadays, require a crutch:


they’ve been recycled overmuch.



Poets, with each lively ditty,


use their dictionary quota:


nothing changes, more’s the pity, 


not one thing, not one iota.


Words, although at times fantastic,


choke the human sea like plastic.