Hurrah for Little England

From an original version published on the eve of the Brexit vote.

 

Hurrah for Little England

She cast herself adrift

Say goodbye to Brussels

We’ll head into the mist.

 

Don’t know where we’re going

The captain’s overboard

But we won’t be ruled by foreigners

Or people from abroad.

 

We’ll resurrect our Empire

They’ll surely want us back

So it’s goodbye to the future

We’re turning back the clock.

 

No need for foreign factories

No need for all those jobs

For life will just be perfect

With all the foreigners gone.

 

We’ll reclaim all our colonies

Take America back;

Canada and New Zealand

They’ll surely all want that?

 

Goodbye foreign subsidy

That’s not what we need

Londoners will pay for us

Let’s let London bleed.

 

Goodbye banks and bankers

We don’t need city jobs

Life will just be perfect

When Britain’s on its tod.

 

It really should be easy

Why the awful fuss?

Those beastly Europeans

Make it hard for us.

 

It’s really not your business

We won’t obey your rules.

Why do you think as customers

You have the right to choose?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bring back British Summer

Let’s get out of Europe

We can’t take the heat

It’s OK for a fortnight

But now it’s got us beat.

Stop it at the border

Keep the weather out

Too hot for the English

Not what we’re about.

Jet stream out of Europe

What’s it coming to?

Sweeps across the country

Who asked me and you?

Keep your foreign weather

Leave us well alone

We don’t want your sunshine

We prefer our own.

Bring us clouds and rain again

Chance of a good moan

Hateful British weather

That we can call our own.

Weather of our choosing

Give us back control

Foreign interference

Don’t want that at all.

Old, male, pale and stale

I’m old, I’m male,

I’m pale, I’m stale

So please ignore my views.

We’ve had our chips

Been written off

Removed from public gaze.

‘That’s your lot

Enough of you

Be gone

Get out of here.’

‘Surplus to requirements

Time to leave the stage.

Crawl away and die some place

That’s all we ask of you.’

‘We want to hear new voices

Different points of view

We’re sick and tired of hearing

From the likes of you.’

‘You didn’t get a leg up

Go to private school

But look like the advantaged

So that’s enough of you.’

‘You got to have an angle

A different point of view

No one wants to hear now

From the likes of you.’

Cucumber Rhumba

6C54CD19-4A62-4936-A8C7-55ECF4FDBA2E.jpegIt’s a cucumber rhumba

Shakedown vegetable ball

She’s one hot tomato

Staked up struttin’ tall.

 

Dig those great potatoes

See them pumpkins sprawl

Vegetables a dancin’

No better sight at all.

 

There’s some fine chuck berries

Rhubarb’s gonna be wine

Apple sauce with dumplings

Fine crop harvest time.

 

Cabbage Patch percussion

Beetroot keepin’ time

Purple Sprouting, Runners

Strawberry fields; all mine.

 

Broccoli a go go

Lettuce all alone

Grandad in the veg patch

Raking out the stones.

 

Shed your inhibitions

Call a spade a spade

Do the mashed potato

Think we got it made.

Empty Barrels

They say that empty barrels

Make the loudest noise.

It’s often those who’ve lost their voice

Most desperate to shout.

You can not buy the silence

Of those who will not speak

Hear their silent screaming

Their rising fit of pique.

Hear the barrels jarring

Down the bumpy road

If you don’t hear them complaining

Just wait till they implode.

It’s not the silken voices

That strike the loudest notes

A noise will pierce the silence

The quiet ones in revolt.

It’s so hard to reason

With those who will not speak

It’s hard to turn a barrel round

That’s rolling down the street.

From my new collection on Wattpad- Male, Pale and Stale

Flat Pack Poem

If poems came in flat packs

You’d empty out the parts

And try to figure what went where

And how it ought to look.

You’d have a stack of words to sort

Some rhymes to give a shape

A structure and a rhyme scheme

A unifying thought.

You’d piece it all together

Once you’d got the gist

But someone else created it

The credit would be his.

Summer of Sixty Six – The Years of Hurt

It ended like this once but perhaps, just perhaps there’ll be a new chapter??!!!

The story ends there

Or perhaps it goes on?

For all the years since

Are filled with hurt.

It’s hard to be English

We invented these games

But when push comes to shove

It’s always the same.

We always get beaten

And at our own game.

And beat by the Germans

Again and again

They say we are arrogant

Expecting to win

But it’s more disappointment

And patience worn thin.

And so often in football

The team in the way

Has been the same Germans

We beat on that day.

There’ll be a new tournament

We get up our hopes

But sooner or later

We’re back on the ropes.

There have been odd occasions

Where we have come close

But when it comes to a shoot out

The Germans are best.

So the story ends there

But also goes on

As we dream of the trophy

We’ve only once won.

Summer of Sixty Six -Part Seventeen

How long it all lasted

Is not easy to say

They found us a house

And we soon moved away.

But from similar experience

I’d take a guess

That the way it ended

Was something like this.

The adults moved in

And cancelled the joy

There’d be rules

Proper pitches and organised teams.

There’d be no creativity

Or players with flair

No playing for fun

In case you might lose.

In time the green spaces

Would be covered with signs

No running, no ball games

No boys on the grass.

And the games that made heroes

And heroes to be

Now carry a label

They are called ASB.

So all day football

Is no longer seen

Kids can’t go out

So they’re stuck

To a screen.

Winding down now – 2 more episodes.

Summer of Sixty Six – Part Seventeen

We’d won the World Cup

But they wanted it back!

So the games that we played

Would last all day.

There’d be big kids

And small kids

At different times

But the games that we played

Would never end.

And maybe we won

Or maybe we lost

I can’t really

Tell you and that’s

Because

We’d each keep the score

There’d be more than one

We each had our own

And believed we’d won.

Three figure scores

Would be the norm.

With jumpers for goal posts

Or maybe a tree

We’d fight to defend

That victory.

They couldn’t speak English

We couldn’t speak Deutsch

The game did the talking

And that was enough.

It didn’t get nasty

It didn’t get rough

But agreeing on rules

Was sometimes tough.

We still thought

And with scores to settle

The Germans were out

To test our mettle.

So I played for my country

And in a small way

I feel like part

Of that history.

Not quite through yet. Where will this end?

Summer of Sixty Six – Part Sixteen

We’d won the World Cup

But they wanted it back!

So the games that we played

Would last all day.

There’d be big kids

And small kids

At different times

But the games that we played

Would never end.

And maybe we won

Or maybe we lost

I can’t really

Tell you and that’s

Because

We’d each keep the score

There’d be more than one

We each had our own

And believed we’d won.

Three figure scores

Would be the norm.

With jumpers for goal posts

Or maybe a tree

We’d fight to defend

That victory.

They couldn’t speak English

We couldn’t speak Deutsch

The game did the talking

And that was enough.

It didn’t get nasty

It didn’t get rough

But agreeing on rules

Was sometimes tough.

We still thought a shoulder barge

Quite okay

And didn’t leave goalies

To have their own way.

‘Englander fussball’

Is what we would say.

They’d say ‘Deutschlander football’

And tug on your shirt.

We played against Germans

From miles around.

Aggrieved by that goal

And with scores to settle

The Germans were out

To test our mettle.

So I played for my country

And in a small way

I feel like part

Of that history.

Not quite through yet. Where will this end?