Wednesday, December 02, 2009

A tribute to Sir Thomas Crapper


A tribute to Sir Thomas Crapper


A sanitary saviour

His bowl shall never overflow

The empire’s gratitude

Is expressed in moments of relief.


A collective sigh of

Pleasure and comfort

On the great leveller

The throne of peasants

An unsavoury treat.


An engineering miracle

Makes inconvenience disappear

Leaving the unspoken unsmelt

Recycling in its purest sense

With a lavish flourish

And sleeves of running water.


A sudden change in history

An unacknowledged chapter

Unchampioned, uncelebrated

Relegated to a footnote

Of cataclysmic improvements


A daily ablution

Taken for granted

Like breathing

But its absence

Plunges civilisation

Back into the dark ages.