Toast-Masters

Here’s to the power elite
The godfathers
And godmothers of poetry

Here’s to the editors
The arbiters of taste
Who make and break poets

Here’s to the hand-wringers
The psychological castrators
The networkers and cronies

Here’s to the sycophants
The suck holes and sell-outs
All the hangers on

Here’s to the publishers
The politically correct
And all the tripe they print

Here’s to the pretenders
The dead journals
And the benefits of hindsight

Here’s to the farcical waste
All those boring books
The ones real people don’t read

Here’s to the others
The rejected
The unpublished

The unfashionable
The uncompromising
The unaffected

The disconnected
The disenfranchised
The independents

The incorruptible
The anarchists
The heretics

The loners
The questioners
The seekers of truth

The down and out
The powerless
The meek

The strong
The thick skinned
The ones who never give up!