On Masterpieces

Scorn is poured on near-misses
accidents and failures
while twice as many masterpieces
litter streets and plazas

Every outlaw, inlaw, Isis
aged desperado
is throwing sheafs of masterpieces
out their bedroom window

While underwriters, bookies, tasters
ombudsmen of schmaltz
collect and bank these masterpieces
in the deepest vaults

And exiled kings, whose pain is ceaseless
through all kinds of weather
police the land for masterpieces
break down doors for masterpieces
search their sons for masterpieces
with a Nazi fervour

"This has to stop," says D. J. Taylor
But just this morning, no doubt in an adulterer's
or ex-addict's sweaty-pale flurry, 'one last time', he
flicked the needle-tip of his influence
and declared another novelist to be
"One of those rare things."