There are no stiff upper lips
on our spent lower shelves –
no Spam [& no Fray Bentos!]
sat in line/ We were short of
stuff back in 1944 – but then
we made sacrifices – & other
myths/ H.M.S. Great Britain
is our ghost ship – her holds
laid bare by ugly mutineers/
Spivs do well/ Priests desire
faith/ Old rich remain rich as
solace dispels for those ill &
poor & old – those cast-offs –
not one will be let off [unless
you make a bob or two from
virus antidotes – there’s dosh
in infections & Amazon crap]
A minister decries those who
hate free enterprise – political
malice is forever contagious
among our more prosperous
[who declaim stiff upper lips!]
Tag: british
Country Lanes
Mad Max offered me shares
Fifty-fifty in a gentlemens’ club –
I could
Taste their wares – test their tits
was his opening roadside pitch
Girls ain’t the problem –
undergraduates aplenty –
it’s the bloody bouncers
with their qualifications
That’s now our problem
Max is missing some teeth
his breath stinks of dog food
Turn on your heel, Mike
and carry on along this lane
Strange men lurk in Hailsham
Doggerland
When swamped Noah’s Wood
has re-seeded above sea rises –
when it has been reinstated –
that connection
of Britain [no more a stoic island
able to gorge on separation
& cry out a huge difference]
would be fixed
Such an implausible conceit –
with our warming & tipping concerns
seeing fast incursions of salt water –
no reunification is possible
Slumped & washed by a North Sea rush –
yet to return are men & women –
hot in our blood/ They sleep in silt/
We were never an island race
MIKE BELL | 10,000 Poems 