They have been betrayed by an elite,
their bananas should be
turning the corner in imperial measure,
splendidly bunched together
all pomp and circumstance,
complete with grocer’s apostrophe,
somewhere between that small
parade of shops,
selling useful things like balls of string
and sherbet dabs.
They want to turn the clock back
to that blessed era
show-reeled in black and white,
when the Germans
were roundly defeated,
and no one worried about quotas
and fished wherever they liked,
mowing their lawns into stripes
at weekends after the football,
living without fear of outsiders
claiming their oxygen
and filling up backyards, schools
and hospitals with all those
inconvenient troubles from a wider world.
Their ears have ceased listening,
their arms are folded,
opinions set in concrete,
placed in a lock up for posterity,
because there is no longer
room for difference,
other colours or another language,
only a notion of sovereignty
as obsolete as the aspidistra,
given away with plenty of free
bunting to hang out
on the occasion
of a royal wedding every quarter.
They’d rather sit inside a half-built
conservatory relying on the double-glazing
to keep out thunderbolts and plagues of locusts
as investors withdraw and steel plants close down,
because they can always see the bigger picture
on their 42 inch plasma,
nodding at each sound bite
delivered by milk-shaked gargoyles
on the make and other
official purveyors of untruths,
joining in a chorus blaming everyone else
for the mess and all the while
not really noticing how those lazy
opportunists swivel away
from policy declarations,
just saying they want No Deal
back on the table,
because sadly plain common sense
is now beyond the grasp of this small island
where populism
bloodshot with lolling tongue,
has gone bonkers
under the midday sun.
**
lise colas 