(Online poetry-information group)
Last week I clicked a Facebook link – in quest of things poetic
to my surprise, instead I got the female form aesthetic.
The image showed in detail all the bits one should not see;
she was lying there exposed and I thought ‘goodness gracious me!’
I was shocked by what I saw in her lack of inhibition.
It was not, it seemed, an advert for a poetry competition,
or the cover of a book for a poet’s new collection,
and I wondered if I should, or shouldn’t, make a close inspection.
I know that art is various, you’ll not find me neglecting
Those views I’m not enamoured of, but maybe need respecting,
and though one man’s erotica is someone else’s vice,
I thought the titillation there fell somewhat short of ‘nice’.
So I clicked the little icon and requested the removal
of the image as unseemly, and unfit for the approval
of poets of all persuasions, including the depraved,
and resisted the temptation of a screenshot, swiftly saved.
Quite soon, I got a message from the Facebook censor corps
to thank me for reporting the pornography I saw.
‘It’s now been taken down’, they said, and I thought – ‘Given time,
that wanton naked Venus might provoke a bit of rhyme’.