This poem was found amongst the detritus of the early operatives – the young Turks if you will – of the Australia Council in the 1970’s.  It talks of committees and activism in the past and has little relevance today.

To Sit on Committees

They were bright metal once.  Souls aflame.
Smelling something rotten in the State.
Ardent to set it right.  They began bravely.
with banners, songs;  They sought the dreadful summit. 

But were led into committees, where dead words 
Hang in the conditioned air like ash
And settle slowly on the carpet.  The causes
They came to serve are never on the papers,
And drifts of information glaze their brains.

Soon, however, they learn the real agenda.
They become adept:The pointed phrase precisely
Placed; The inside knowledge to parry an
Opponent’s thrust; The twist, the swift diversion.

They savour the cerebral excitement
Of a hit.  So the play becomes the thing.
And later, when they hand the drinks around,
They cannot remember why it was they joined.
Or what they meant to do about the King.

Margery Hourihan