Tongue-tied

Aer Lingus, Ireland’s flag carrier
airline, considering their name
to be hackneyed, dated, as
stale as week-old
Speckendick,*
sought a novel moniker, a name
with panache, a title which would
roll from the tongue like a ball bearing
off a glass dome.  They thought the
name, Aer Lingus to be lifeless,
sans light (“they” being suited
men seated in windowless 
rooms, idling an hour
over momentous
decisions.)
And so it was, they determined,
that an Internet poll would do;
the most popular name was
what they would go with:
the new name would rest
on the whims of the
the world, via that
net linking all,
everywhere.

The results left many suits speechless,
stammering, jaws stressed like taut
hawsers.  Names pored in like
levees breeched,
yet one stood out like an
elephant in the snow--number one
in the poll--it was not even close.
The suits then knew of dichotomy,
and of contrast, of difference, 
and of conflict.
They were not sly at all,
but hunkered down in humble poses
ready to gnaw a supper of crow.
They knew that Cunning Lingus
would not do; no, it was
not apropos.


40 Lines
Writer’s Cramp Winner
5-7-16
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*Speckendick is a rye pancake made between two iron plates,
  filled with lard or bacon, dried sausage and a little syrup.