By: Alan Ford

A moral satirist.
Pimps and politicians meet
romantics and radicals
with no class distinction.

A Rake’s Progress
with bloodline infected
by patriarchal contagion
travel sick in embryo.

A Harlot’s Progress
portrays seductress as victim
safe-guarding hypocrisy
for respectable women.

Marriage A- La- Mode
sees mercenary couplings
who are merely a commodity
for aristocratic rights.

They marry for connections
pissing on tradition
so cash replaces lust
and love is irrelevant.

The Denunciation
as polite society is punctured
posturing families mocked
and captioned by absurdity.

Common people are abandoned
in Fleet debtors prison.
When the gentry’s in debt
they hold a parliamentary inquiry.

Thieves steal a living
poverty is a polemic
but final exit is the scaffold
swinging into history.

Death comes from a ruptured artery.
His paintings disrupted life
now disharmony lies broken
by-passing his critics.