You gave your love to the government.
Your liver to the greyhounds
and the squalor you live in.

The Asian district disappoints you
with its inaccessible women
to whom you are flaccid and unlovable.

The pub is full of students,
air humid with *** and youth-
all those impossible frames of reference.

You, proud emblem, are confused by it all.
The drawl of the six o'clock news:
“there is a war at your own front door.”

The Golden Age was taken for granted,
a party spoiled by strangers,
strange music, strange clothes;

the symbols you cannot understand.
Tradition fades to dementia, greyscale,
redundant colour, and jaded patriotism;

you raise the mourning flag alone.
A country died in your lifetime,
your romanticised vision of home.