On the twenty third of June, anniversary of my father’s death,
The United Kingdom voted to LEAVE the European Union.
It was a close-run thing:
Fifty two percent to forty eight,
Though over a million votes between.

A result that will go down in the annals of history.
Another vote the pollsters and bookmakers got wrong.
I voted Leave, confidently expecting to Lose!!!
My friends were split in two
As Remainers became ReMOANers!

For I’m now branded a nationalist, bigoted racist
Who has made a massive mistake.
But I insist: Britain has Rejoined the World
And Our Commonwealth.

We are reborn
So sure there will be teething troubles.
We’ll have to learn to walk and talk again.

Cast off your gloom, Remainers!
Rejoice the brand new day.
Britain can be great again
As the dawn chorus resonates around the globe.
Opportunity smiles down on us.
It won’t be easy,
But when ever was it so???

The Phoenix rises,
Unfurling its golden wings…

Paul Butters

© PB 27\6\2016.

We are a global society
When we want oranges in the fruit bowl,
When we want out of our rut
Just long enough
To brown in a patch of Spanish sun.
We are a global society
When the Japanese car breaks down
And we are in need of a cheap fix
To keep food on the table,
Some Latvian mechanic
Who helps us find our way home.

We are our own nation,
An island nation,
When the zeroes run low
And there are spaces,
Foreign faces,
To which we can point
And blame.

We are a global society
With our sweat-shop chic,
American coffee chains
Selling Colombian ground beans,
Frappuccinos in plastic cups-
Made in China
And served by a Romanian barista
In Italian heels.
We are a global society
When the demand is high
And the payment is low.

We are our own nation,
An island nation,
When hands reach out for help
And our pockets are too shallow,
Our time, too brief
To commit to a unity
We feel is dragging us down.

We are a global society
When the football is on,
When the lager is Belgian
And the supermodel, Greek.
When we cradle that bag of Cheetos
After smoking too much ****.
We are a global society
When oppression is overt,
Caricatured in bulletin posters,
Threatening to land
Upon our own front door.

We are our own nation,
An island nation,
When poverty seems contagious,
When we have to clean up
Someone else’s mess,
Still we scar the Middle East
Only half-interested in an exit.

We are a global society
When we get sick,
When we borrow another doctor
For our ailing NHS.
When cities of white people burn,
We are a global society,
When Africa is divided,
We are nowhere to be seen.
Prime mover of the commonwealth
Yet we fall beneath the breadline
And living easy is so rare.

We are our own nation,
An island nation,
Under the false flag
Of a golden age
We were conned to believe in.
Our nation, our island nation,
Lost amongst a sea of misinformation.

Do I leave, Do I stay
Do I play or run away
Which way today
Go left, go right
Do I stay, do I fight
Who’s my brother, who’s my mother
Who’s my wife, and who’s my lover
It’s me, or them,
It’s now, or then
Maybe my community,
Or a dangerous lion’s den
Do I tango,
Do I talk
Do I break
Or make a wall
Do I fly
Or do I fall

Left right Left right
Wrong Right Wrong Right
Far right Outta sight
Loose Tight Loose Tight
Left right Left right

Well now I’ve come to the crux of it
I’m going to be a Bodhisattva Brit
All this self, cherishing spin
Explains the state we’re in
Our imperialistic past
Built the wealth of our state
Now we’d better give some back
Before it’s way too late


Sean Hunt  June 7 2016

You madman ranting in the train
Time sold in that bottle should delay your pain
But what has poisoned you to disordain
Professing the impossible over and over again
"My manhood into" Britain! you claim
The universe is all to blame
Your wishful dreams are driving you insane
To hell with all but what remains
Is just a madman ranting in the train

To me a poem is a Statement, even a Speech.
So, Friends, Britons and countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Britain, not to praise it.
The evils that empires do live long after them.
Colonial wrongs seem never put to right.
Achievements hidden away in dusty books
By historians, all honourable men (and women!).
Yet historians say the Brits were too ambitious
And too self-righteous by half.
For historians are honourable men (and women).
They say we must accept that we’re a tiny island nation
And accept our place in the world.
Yes, historians are honourable men (and women).
They say we were too ambitious.
But now, the world is threatened by dark forces,
And only the winner takes the spoils (and writes the history!).
Once more unto the breach us Brits must go,
To fight like tigers
And smite the foe.

Paul Butters

Like a telly weather presenter
You have given
A perfect representation
Of bittersweet Britishness,
My good friend, Keith!  

I love many things about England
But the bittersweetness
Of the weather
Is not one of them  

My ideal climate
would be the same temperature
every day, all day
and all night,
all year long
  
The moon would have to become
Sun-like during the night;  
Then I would be perfectly content
(with the weather)  

The weather would stop being
Such a persistent
And consistent
Topic of conversation
And question of commentary,
On whether it was fine or not

The climate in question
Does not exist
Here on planet earth

Sean Hunt
Windermere, January 16 2016

Ferry Christmas

There is no snow
Now 'tis the season
To get a little wet
Why are Brits surprised
When they're
Up to their eyes
In water?

When we weigh in stones
And drive on the wrong
Side of the road
Why wouldn't abodes
Begin to float?

We foreign men
Have seen some signs
We're not surprised
By what we see
In the Queen's country

The land's a little low,
And a little high
Are the lakes and sea.
There doesn't seem to me
Much mystery.

Ferry Christmas!
If the sea surrounds us all
It'll be 'The Life of Pi'
When we have to abandon
This English atoll

Sean Hunt
Windermere Xmas 2015

With a Jewish religion and a German Queen,
Who has a clue where the Brits have been?
Mum’s clan were Huguenots,
Dad’s maybe Welsh.
Lots of Africans in our football teams.

Keep out those immigrants many do say,
Even those whose parents came from Bombay.
We’ve lots of patriots from Pakistan:
The younger generation, Brits to a man.

But some are Radicals I hear you say,
We should be sending them on their way,
Back to Asia where they belong,
To the tunes of a UKIP song.

So what is “British” we must ask,
For this is not an easy task.
Justice and Democracy I hear you shout,
Tiny islands with some clout.

Shakespeare, Beatles, Rugby Lions,
Churchill clapping foes in irons.
Let’s be glad that we are free
And settle down to a cuppa tea.
Paul Butters

October

The Leaves on the trees are falling down,
while those that remain are orangey brown,
The mornings are foggy,
The days are short,
Kids collect conkers of every sort.

The Swallows are going,
To Africa they Fly,
At this time of year the sun gets all shy

When Pumpkins Have faces,
And bonfires get lit,
I don't miss the Summer one little bit.

The mornings are darker,
And quite often wet!
Winter is coming!
But not just yet...

Rugby, Warwickshire
16/10/2015

Unholy streets of G-d, liquid tobacco,
gentle froth and steam
from the coffee estuary, split beneath the clock tower
on the idle hour; more pigeons than people,
more buildigs than choices
on this small-town, charity shop parade.

The women are still beautiful, still unattainable,
still on the brink of a breakdown
in the most confident dress.
Street-pastors carry the drunks home,
the street-cleaners appear by the afterparty,
clear out the old bottles
before the commuter picks up cigarettes
from the newsagents that never rests.

Tattoo parlours, barber shops,
Christmas on the radio come Hallowe'en-
this is the town that crazy built:
war-time poetry, jet propulsion,
chief inventor of sport,
of mild alcohol addiciton.

There's hundreds of places to get drunk in this town,
hundreds of places to hide away;
a foreign face in a sea of family and friends.
Landlocked, gridlocked,
centrally located but left out on a limb;
this town clings to the tracks,
it's avenues of escape
the only margin to keep the residents
out of mind and in their place.

But this is where I grew up,
always more car-park than parkland,
my first steps on Campbell Street,
on Armstrong Close,
first time I broke the law on Bridget Street,
on Selborne Road.
I'd push my bike all around this town,
no stopping off for a smoke,
for to get my fix-
I'd push on and on past graveyards and open bars
without a second gance.

Now, it's all shooters and soul-singers
and happenstance;
chicken wings on a late-night binge,
a box of wine, a night of sin,
wake up in shame,
life's a guessing game
and guess what, you'll never win.

Chewing gum, patches,
vapour that scratches the back of my throat,
nicotine in my blood,
you know, I'm trying my best to get clean.
Blister packs of vitamins, bowls of fruit,
buying coconut water over the counter-
green tea by the rising moon,
incense sticks and vegetables in the garden,
yet by the time night rolls on by
the locus of my eyes, they darken;
I'll be back on the beer,
I'll be smoking a carton.

This is the town that crazy built,
even the flowers by the roadside wilt,
cement factory, hum-drum poverty,
post-code belonging to Coventry,
kept out of the war
by a matter of minutes,
kept from the future
by corporate interest.

Hospital lights, supermarket glow,
I can't remember the last time
I wasn't loaded with chemicals
every time I get home,
every time I sign out
and put my head on the pillow,
I see familiar streets, familiar signs,
the job centre, the floodlights,
the 12% lager, the twist of lime.
I struggle with rhyme,
I struggle most days to get out of the house,
but at night, I know, that sea of doubt
is a river of light, to ruin my liver,
to spike my fever, to calm me down.

There's hundreds of places to get drunk in this town,
and this world it don't spin,
it just throws me around.