Poetry

POEMOTIONS

Text of book

Start of page 88 in the book

Part Four

Aspects of Public Life

Prologue Four 89

Inclusiveness 91
Doug 93
Ballad of Guildford 1974 95
Peace in a Fair Land 96
Polco Song 98
I'm Multiculturally Confused 100
The Public Man 101
To a Royal Academician from his Subject 102
Rights of the English 103
Inventing New English Words 105

In 2002 I am Dismayed 108

Song of the Horrible Racist 109

Differences in Attitudes 111
Dead Queen Mum 113
Kindly Get Out of My Country 117
The Prime Minister 119
The Democratic Deficit 120

Start of page 89 in the book

Prologue Four

My adviser X thinks little of public life. He would ignore it, but is too intelligent to suppose he could get away with that. He knows only too well how painfully what is public can impinge on the supposedly private, so he has arranged these seventeen poems with exquisite care.

We are nowadays urged to inclusiveness, but some would prefer to exclude from their inner lives those who don't share their values. That would bring in embarrassing Doug, the doughty old soldier who stoutly defended us and our values through more than one war. Then we come to the Irish, who despite being our kin do not support us in our wars, and think it right to bomb and kill us in innocent places like Guildford, English town. Democracy is not a house of cards, cries the youth who demands peace in a fair land. He is faced down by the many who, placing political correctness above truth and righteousness, stupidly sing the Polco Song.

The public man copes with all that: this decade is my decade, he says. The Royal Academician painted me as a lustful devil - but inside it wasn't quite like that. We pass to the rights of the English: have they any left? Then comes the song of the horrible, horrible racist. You'd shoot me if you could - you being liberally whiter than white, and I so misunderstood. The English language is known to have a rich vocabulary - so why don't they leave it alone? Who drained the brains of the Anglo-Saxons, so that now they bend low apologising for being English, disavowing their glorious past, begging everyone's pardon? Then there are the differences in attitudes. Why among the English has the passing of just a few years produced such changes here?

Next I come to the passing of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother. A Glamis girl, always a Glamis girl, she needed a castle for life. (I assume you know Glamis is pronounced Glahms.) Then we come to the horrors of Southall, upon which 25,000 Somalis suddenly descended. Kindly, if you don't mind, get out of my country.

Who is to blame? It can only be the Prime Minister. Not even a gleam in his old father's eye was this haughty Prime Minister

Start of page 90 in the book

when our decent ideals were formed. So we will stick to them, thank you very much. For we are of the faithful variety.

We end with the democratic deficit. It's a loss, Harold Acton said, to be dropped to the lowest.

Start of page 91 in the book

Inclusiveness

It's no use arguing:
we have to make up our minds
about what they suddenly call inclusiveness.

Suddenly Mervyn tells me it's wrong
not to love the dirty beggar
and let him and his fleas lie down with us.

Suddenly Mervyn bids me be multicultural.
In old white England, he tells me,
I must embrace the incoming Muslim.

Mervyn says whether I like it or not
I must embrace the incoming brown Muslim
who hates my old Christian religion.

I suppose the opposite of Mervyn's inclusiveness
would be exclusiveness:
which is really what I prefer.

I would prefer to exclude from my life, I tell Mervyn,
those who don't share my values:
I would find that more comfortable, as a way to live.

It's nice to be comfortable, I tell Mervyn,
in the way you live:
so do let them stop ordering me about multiculturally.

These new inclusive commanders order my life about, I tell Mervyn,
and I've only got one.
I'll live it with those who suit, if you don't mind.

If you don't mind
(and who are you anyway?)
I'll live my life from now on with those who suit.

Start of page 92 in the book

This isn't just a poem you know -
or even a poem you don't know -
it's a lifetime proclamation, I tell Mervyn.

I could have made this proclamation anywhere.
I could have posted it up on a wall in the town,
or written it as a letter to the Times.

I could have proclaimed it as a bursting bomb
thrown in, to little Mervyn's innocent house -
exploding all his pretension.

For it is pretentious, when you think of it,
to tell English people they must be inclusive
when all through life and their history they have been exclusive:

When their fathers and mothers were exclusive,
and their grandfathers and grandmothers were exclusive,
and so it went on up the ages.

Dear Mervyn, I know you're well-meaning
but please understand, use your wits,
and then you might perceive

you've got a big cheek to suppose
you are going to change us all now
with this big, big talk of being inclusive.

It's not what we want, Mervyn,
so why not get lost?
Why not crawl back to your house I won't bomb?

Start of page 93 in the book

Doug

One of Doug's shiny medals fell flat on the floor
as he stood up and shakily saluted
at his umpteenth parade in our old drill hall
when Field Marshal Shute
took the salute
and dribbling Doug responded.

He took the salute, did Field Marshal Shute,
in the face of the ancient comrades -
a ragged lot he thought they looked
as dutifully
he took the salute
from those whom duty rejected.

Those might be the last, thought Field Marshal Shute,
as his driver drove back to the barracks,
with any luck, they might be the last
of ancients whose medals fall flat on the floor -
whom everyone else
elects to ignore.

Field Marshal Shute, far from a brute,
that night lay back and reflected.
As his lady wife lay beside him snoring
he dwelt on the problem of Doug, not boring,
and Doug's shiny
descending medals.

Too many medals, from too many wars,
all prone to fall flat on the floor -
wars in the east, wars in the west,
wars it is best to ignore:
but all old Doug's wars,
one and all, his wars mattered.

Start of page 94 in the book

They were said to be fought to defend us, Doug's wars.
But now people see no cause.
Doug stubbornly blinks, polishes his brass,
greases his old Sam Browne,
cleans the bolt
on his trusty point 303 rifle.

Thus prepared, Doug does what he's done
since the Army first discharged him.
Old Doug sees enemies everywhere,
that's his habit, well worn from life-
and by God
he will have them by the ears while there's breath in him.

Field Marshal Shute, far from a brute,
reflects on this problem, thrust in his lap,
by what he still thinks of as King's Regulations.
We all know there are not really enemies of England.
But who will convince deluded Doug?
- and who can prove he's not right?

Start of page 95 in the book

Ballad of Guildford 1974

On Saturday 5th October 1974 IRA bombs were planted at two public houses in the country town of Guildford in Surrey, The Horse and Groom and the The Seven Stars. The bombs exploded at the height of the evening rush, killing five people and injuring fifty-four. The following poem, written to commemorate this event, was set to music by the American guitarist Abby Young. She performed it, with a backing group, on a BBC2 television programme broadcast in 1974.

Did you hear, did you see,
in Guildford our town?
Through October's scudding leaves
Irish bombers brought us down.

Stars burst, Seven Stars burst,
inside Guildford, our town;
the room burst, Horse and Groom burst,
in Guildford, English town.

Don't turn away, shrug and say
'Happy days!' and drink it down:
the slaughtered young, make them live on
in Guildford, English town.

O outrage, overflowing
for the words they put down;
for the blast they threw instead
at gentle flesh in Guildford town.

There's reason, drowned in blood;
persuasion - silent now:
bereaved ones rocking still
in Guildford, English town.

Don't turn away, shrug and say
'Happy days!' and drink it down:
the slaughtered young, make them live on
in Guildford, English town.