Going Down (Poetry)

The one bad apple found on Heaven's tree
they cut away and forced corruption free.
He fell, unfazed, denied the trumped-up charge
and grew back twice as rotten, twice as large.

According to his tale, we've got it wrong
and he's just been a scapegoat all along -
set up by some self-righteous holy gang
and we swallowed every word, the whole shebang.

Now, for one condemned to permanent disgrace,
he's fallen on his feet if Hell's the place
they say it is - a nightclub down below
where crooked cops and politicians go -

jam-packed with folk the tabloids named as scum,
(the mainstays of The Mail, The Sport, The Sun),
a mixed assembly with a common claim -
all rose like stars and fell to earth again,

tumbled from their pedestals by hacks
who toadied first then stabbed them in their backs,
ruined them with rumour - stirred the shit,
threw in more ridicule then printed it.

Fame's public elevator's got it's quirks -
it's rare a mid-floor button ever works -
straight to the top where, teetering, we know
we're on our own with one place left to go.