whither thou goest my lovely Albion in this
dark and unforgiving twenty-first century?
you tiptoe into a future European family
but lose your nerve and squirm out again,
you prefer a royal funeral and a new coronation
in antique ritual regalia and ludicrous claptrap
with buffoons and toad-eyed Trump-lickers
on the ballot boxes as the old empire DNA
comes home to roost on a flotilla of rafts,
you blunder into Iraq and Afghanistan
only to come home bruised and confused
when they despise you and shit on your gifts,
you barter your tomorrow for a fistful of McDollars,
thou pale and faded England of Celt and Angles,
Iceni and Norse, Boudica, sacred druids of the groves,
Pict and Brigante, Mary Shelley, and wiccan pagans
crushed beneath the wheels of industry, warfare,
ration-books, corruption, decay and reality-TV,
we are Mad Dogs & Englishmen, twisted and broken
in bone and muscle, clogged and mouldy with history,
England, are you even worthy of your socialists,
your trade unionists, your William Blake and Byron,
your HG Wells and ‘Dan Dare’, Clement Attlee,
Aleister Crowley, your Welfare State, Cable Street,
your Rolling Stones, Windrush, Anarchist Bookshop,
your Diggers, Ranters, Levellers and hippies?
I close my eyes and I think of England,
I love thee my ghost-sad Albion,
but you do so maketh me mad
with thy silliness, thy reverence and class
your tip your hat to Bridgerton docility and your
dusty house of lords strung with slumbering bishops,
and yet you dress up in holy fool guise
and idiot dance defiance on the village green,
we are English, we apologise and move on,
nothing to see here, nothing to see at all…
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Andrew Darlington
Twitter: @darlingtonandy
Website: www.andrewdarlington.blogspot.com
.