Poetry

POEMOTIONS

Text of book

Part Four (continued)

Aspects of Public Life

Start of page 96 in the book

Peace in a Fair Land

Democracy is not a house of cards:
it takes longer to build up than that.
It builds, with lives and battles,
the long agony of unrecognised heroes.

But like that house of cards it can be knocked down
by unthinking blows
destroying in moments
what the hard centuries have hardly built.

I prize your freedom;
you prize mine -
but freedom must be fought for again
in every generation.

Freedom - ordered, fair -
everyone's prized possession -
came to this land in agony
with everyone fighting and doubting.

It still waits trembling to be plucked
by rude and thoughtless hands -
the don't-care stupid grasp
of wilful ignorance.

Rally then the sluggish guards of freedom;
assemble the unknowing democratic hosts -
broadcast the consoling message once again:
about the golden flower we heirs enjoy.

It is the right to dwell in peace in a fair land;
we will pass it on, we ought to,
in turn to our own heirs.
No cause can justify its death.

Start of page 97 in the book

That fair youth who, civilisation's pride,
spreads his bright locks in the safe sun -
lays out his clean limbs on the harsh rocks, sighs his content,
speaks clear and loud to you:

disturb not mine inheritance.
I claim my right to live with peace in a fair land;
the right to grow, quietly to enhance
my best chance.

So quell the fools
putting crass fingers on the tracery
of that delicate barrier that marks
the limits of man's best advance.

Fragile, it's fragile,
the barricade
that keeps us from our jolly ancestors the barbarians,
and keeps us safe as long as we will let it.

Protect and value
that fragility
the young one says -
I want to keep it, even if you don't.

Start of page 98 in the book

Polco Song

We are all politically correct,
politically correct, politically correct.
We are all politically correct,
It's the current thing to be.

I never get up for a lady,
Or rush to open a door.
Even to call her a lady
Is really not done any more.

We are all politically correct,
politically correct, politically correct.
We are all politically correct,
It's the current thing to be.

If you're sexist or ableist or ageist,
or think of a black as a coon;
the advice I can give you that's sagest
is fly up and live on the moon.

We are all politically correct,
politically correct, politically correct.
We are all politically correct,
It's the current thing to be.

We've dismissed all the truths that were once taught
on élitism, breeding and class.
The tenets for which people once fought -
we're happy to see them all pass.

We are all politically correct,
politically correct, politically correct.
We are all politically correct,
It's the current thing to be.

Start of page 99 in the book

Will it change back to be as it once was?
Will the pendulum swing yet again?
Your guess is as good . . ., but we must pause
And for the moment maintain our refrain.

We are all politically correct,
politically correct, politically correct.
We are all politically correct,
It's the madcap thing to be.

Start of page 100 in the book

I'm Multiculturally Confused

Cheery chaps tell me I must be multicultural.
Haughty thought-police shriek in my ear,
sternly smashing their feather truncheons on my crushed      skull, holding my brain,
that I must be multicultural.
They do it threateningly, as I suppose instructed,
but rationally I'm not altogether convinced.

The uniformed multicultural thought-police
offer me no explanations, but merely shrug and act.
They shrug aside my questions, such as:
if everyone should be multicultural
who then would be monocultural?
what culture, whole culture, would be left?

In my confused state it seems to me
that a multiculture cannot exist
unless there are various monocultures it subsumes.
Myself, I'm rather attached to the former English monoculture.
I'd rather have stayed with that, if the thought-police didn't mind.
Later it could always be joined up, in whatever way then seemed to be desired.

Start of page 101 in the book

The Public Man

This decade is my decade
says the public man.
I am big in this decade -
in my prime, enjoying the sensation
of significance;
doing what I can.

I shaped my life for this decade
says the public man;
distorted or twisted
many traits and values;
deferred or went without
many indulgent joys.

I live for you in this decade
says the public man:
knowing what's best for you,
vouchsafed the secret -
passing it on to you,
fulfilling my purpose.

I may look confident
says the public man:
smile warmly, shake your hand,
ask nicely for your vote;
but note behind my eyes
the self that died.

Start of page 102 in the book

To a Royal Academician from his Subject

You painted me as a lustful devil:
but inside
it wasn't quite like that.

How well you captured the flaccid envelope
folded over the bloated filling, the likeness was killing - they all said that:
but inside - well you weren't painting that.

Your brush with reality
rippled and stippled, finally crippled,
my pink soft scrabbling jelly:

the half-thought of something better,
waiting, trying, stertorously sighing,
deluding itself it wasn't dying.

You painted my skin with your usual consummate skill:
the folds in the envelope,
yellow teeth, yellow whites,

wine-bloom, all the faded colours,
the whole life-inscribed surface:
but inside it wasn't quite like that.

I say balls to your painterly eye.

Start of page 103 in the book

Rights of the English

Nature and the Bible require that we English
be divided hierarchically into descending social classes:
no intelligent, informed person would think the English are all the same.

Aliens who are graciously allowed to join our island company need to recognise
that the stamped and issued residence permit is globally of worth,
and that they should be suitably grateful, and accept and perform their new duties.

Before immigration it was laid down by Nature and the Bible
that there should be in England (never mind anywhere else)
a descending order of classes.

We English would be granted (said the Bible) a ruling upper class,
then a serviceable middle class,
and down below the humble hewers of wood and drawers of water.

Thus it was ordained by the Old Testamant, but
what has happened to this required arrangement?
Why nowadays are the hewers and drawers so stroppy and unperforming?

They never draw water for me (of the upper class)
nor do they hew that much wood.
They all seem to be watching television with their feet up.

This has happened I suppose because
the Universal rulers have dozed off
and are neglecting their celestial duty of policing.

Start of page 104 in the book

So while these Universal rulers doze we are taken over
by TV zombies who are oblivious to learning,
and ignorant of scholarship.

The zombies are out to make money for themselves:
concerned only to fill our dim-witted English people's houses
with electronic trash transmitted on their own low level.

As an Englishman I am now raising the alarm
because I think this is a grim situation for our nation,
calling for a wake-up call to the English.

When we widely-esteemed English throw out learning and scholarship, never mind class -
even though over years we have been shown their social value -
somebody needs to wake up the dozing Universal rulers.