We Have No Interest In Persuading The So-Called ‘Undecided’ by Michael Conley

he says I do hear your concerns but is there no way

you could just do your protest somewhere else

quietly and without ruining our fancy dinner

it’s just that some of these celebrities

have travelled quite far to be here

and had very taxing workweeks

to which we reply sir, many of us,

too, have made sacrifices, what with

all the covert strategizing, the fundraising,

the sourcing of facemasks, the procurement

of this antique firehose, of these many tons of dung

– it was especially tricky to source this much dung – so yes,

as you can see we must go through with ruining your fancy dinner

to which he says well fair enough, and thank you for stating

your case so articulately but, look, do you really think

you’re going to change minds with puerile stunts

like this, won’t it make the undecided

actually less disposed to support

your admittedly noble aims

to which we reply don’t you think

we’ve considered that but, and we do

apologise for the robust language, our view

is that the so-called undecided, in light of everything,

can honestly go fuck himself/herself and furthermore what sort

of dweeb would attend a fancy dinner like this anyway, unless it was

explicitly to disrupt it by means of a dung-filled fire hose, so, no, the undecided

and his/her cowardice are of no consequence to us at all to which he says well I’m sorry

but now I’m going to have to try and restrain you to which we reply old man, it’s too late,

the dung is, so to speak, slouching its way towards its ultimate destiny, so

you might as well step aside and let us film our footage to which he says

I’m afraid I can’t to which we reply well, we wish we could say 

even though we find ourselves on opposite sides this day,

still we respect your courage and integrity, if only

in the abstract, but actually we can’t even

say that: history won’t forgive you;

you’re going to get as much dung

on your tuxedo as anyone else 

and you will deserve it

to which he says please

take your hands off me, ow

you’ve broken my jaw, down I go

and we say look, the dung, it’s working,

it’s like a shaken snowglobe, the flakes falling

in thick sheets like a longed-for monsoon rain and

the celebrities, look, they’re covered, look at them so abject

Vernon Kay and Adele crying, look at Keifer Sutherland wishing

he'd not bothered, Gary and Phil Neville and their wives, look at them

running around in their expensive silks, look at their veal escalopes, ruined

their dauphinoise potatoes, ruined, their garden vegetable medleys, all ruined

nobody will ever forget this and we say are those sirens in the shortening distance

and we say yes, sirens, we knew it would be this way and we say

is our immediate future to be filled with many agonies

and we say yes, we knew it would be this way

and we say still, isn’t it just like a fairytale,

a mucky, stinking fairytale, didn’t we

do great, wasn’t it wonderful

simply wonderful to have

been involved

_______________

Michael Conley is a poet and prose writer from Manchester - his latest pamphlet, These

Are Not My Dreams And Anyway Nothing Here Is Purple was published in 2021 by Nine

Pens. His work has been Highly Commended in the Forward Prize and shortlisted for the

Manchester Fiction Prize, and he was the winner of the 2022 Peggy Poole Prize.