They say
you will be extinct
by 2032

the Queen of Hearts'
favorite past-time
the joy of summer

a sign of class
& breeding
in your time

brought over
from France
during Charles II's reign

the memory
of playing you
in that mansion house

across the  river gorge
amidst the roses
will stay with me forever

as a sign of the Britishness
I lost abroad
& when he left


* Queen of Hearts - from ' Alice in Wonderland' by Lewis Carroll

German rye bread & Chinese green tea
each turn of the knife
each touch of the kettle
& you send signs to the neighbors
the heavens above
a tapestry of eyes
salt water & tears
& your knees shaking
in little earthquakes
Fly the flag higher
Britishness is an art
in Earl Grey & crumpets
& mad hatter days
boasting of kisses
in mad houses
kisses you've never had
or else someone you shagged
but once
senseless & beaming
letters to Keats
& always, always
maps of the Empire
some builder nostalgic
for old might & power
& ships on the Thames
like in the old paintings.

A safe haven
an English town
a solid rock of calm
a rose within the madding crowds
with charismatic charm
this peaceful soil is fuelled
by spanish working men
where traditional English rule
calls us back again
a monkey's retreat
where wild habits prevail
a comfortable seat
with an occasional gale
a land of Britishness
spells safety in it's shores
reliability and steadiness
oozing from it's pores

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

Stepping through the portal, chaos’s pause is pressed.
I sit at a table with my baguette, fries & coke,
watching the world continue without me.

The sun is out today, it has been a long time coming,
yet I can hear complaints;
“It’s too **** hot!!!” – Typical Britishness.

I take a bite of baguette,
Savouring the flavours of cottage cheese & pineapple,
a burst of the tropical in my mouth, reflecting the weather outside.

The sunshine has brought with it an abundance of skin on show.
Short skirts & crop-tops; pecs out, shorts & flip-flops,
The wearing of whatever is cool.
Old guys in Panama hats, sandals & socks – Not Cool!!!

I take a bite of baguette and wash it down with coke.

An overpacked bus stops opposite, expelling its human cargo.
Limp, damp and glistening in the sunshine;
Sardine people exiting a giant can on wheels

I take a bite of baguette.

A homeless guy blows in from the concrete plains like a tumbleweed.
Despite the heat, he wears all he possesses;
jeans, jumper, an old school-style parka.
An old sleeping bag and blanket thrown over one shoulder, dragging along behind him.

He stops and asks me for change.
I give him my fries.
He seems grateful.
I feel guilt-free as he leaves;
But I wonder what else he will get to eat today?

I take a slightly guilt-ridden bite of baguette and wash it away with some more coke.

A posse of students come in and join some already seated.
Fist bumps and various cultural greetings are exchanged.
Instantly, the moderate hum of a busy eatery is shattered by the new arrivals as music goes on a portable speaker.

What a God-awful racket it is that passes for music these days!
Suddenly, I feel really old as I hear the voice of my grandfather in my head;
he expressed that very same opinion about my music of choice in the 80s.
The recollection makes me smile.

I take a bite of baguette.
Another bus stops opposite, and more sardine people get off.
More flesh passes by, both cool, and the Not Cool!
More of the homeless amble by asking for change and picking up discarded ***-butts that show the promise of a smoke for later.
Pushchairs laden with sleeping babes, toddlers trailing behind harassed mothers.
Workers, shoppers and moochers;
the whole mix of society passes by, doing what it does.

I take a final bite of baguette and finish up the last of the coke.

My sojourn over, I must now pass once more through the portal,
my window to the world.
Once again, I am simply part of the madding crowd.

ha ha! among the english, even if something is written on pixel paper, in the public domain, it's deemed "spoken"... ha ha! how infuriating this notion of "freedom of speech"... how about you respect my freedom to think, and put thought to paper?! mob dictatorial stasi *****! seems to be, that this supposed "freedom" of speech has extended its stalinist hand into the freedom to think, and "abuse" digital, pixel paper! you *******, wanks! paper, free, defeatists' commodity! pamphlets! hello! they are really trying to make writing = speaking, because? it's on the internet, in a public space! you're just as bad as north korea, no, wait: you're worse! you're what defines the minority report prophecy! and, by the way? the minority report vision... that's twice as bad as 1984.

comes a bit late,  given the 20th century
continental output... well, what is it?
     a cat video?! a cat video with a piglet,
a cat video with a piglet with
a cat licking the piglet...
                                             great!
     can i have my pork chops
right now, or do i have to wait
for a vegetarian protest prior
to the bon appétit?
    might as well call it
by its proper name:
q = ?
         while Q = ?!
e.g. you what(q), vs.
you what(Q)
                    can't deal with
laze-round english...
  ******* will not learn
one iota's worth of a smacker...
i don't mind:
it's called being kind:
you have to be...
you have to ignore the laziness
of others to be kind...
leave being cruel to the english
and the middle-eastern
scoffs;
they seem to have handled the idea
pretty well..
and? *włodzimierz lubański:
thanks to the english - they broke
his legs...
     in terms of the english?
i love to hate them,
rather than hate to love them...
hardly a **** in me...
         esp. because of
    włodzimierz lubański,
top goalscorer for the national team...
even though, i must admit,
the country of my birth?
  seems mythical at times,
just as much as england to me:
feels more like a lunatic asylum than
an actual country...
strange, i speak the language,
but i have no tattoos of the natives,
other than those spoken to me
by my father...
       i wish i had less of these psychic
tattoos...
     then again, i can't seem to organise
myself around english,
  in terms of the upper-tier of
worth of utilising this tongue,
pretty much like any, if not all
of the al-britanni jihadis...
      i can't find myself surprised...
don't know why...
   but i just can't find the globalist nomad jew
in me...
    never could... never will...
and never will the al-britanni muslims
either...
           i couldn't join the caliphate
either: i love music too much,
plus, the adhan is sung...
it's not a catholic murmur of the "creed"...
no music? no go.
        but that's what anglophone
existentialism has become:
ridden with comic strips
          rather than sentences...
cat videos rather than paragraphs...
   it's a bit late to panic...
  might as well shove the panic under
       the carpet, and pretend it's aladdin's;
it's too late to write books on existentially
orientated englishness
(they ask too much about "britishness"
en masse too much, and also too frequently),
     and, as all english people know,
      all too well: in times of panic? speak!
this unpreparedness of inhibition of thought,
and exhibition of talk, is the most rife
characteristic of the english "ambition"...
    suffice to say: people care more
for the freedom to speak (in the english domain):
than the freedom to think...
it really does pain the english to think,
thinking to the english is worth as much
as the need to gulp down a paracetamol;
akin to the "debate" between citizens:
and, does that give you, power over me?
don't like social criticism?
   australia is: wide open;
so is spain, but you'll need to get off your
lingua franca ***, and put an effort into it!
chop chop!
           i'm like kierkegaard in mind
of: the pleasures of thought,
and this, nagging realm of the anglophones
attempting to find their speech as
"compelling", if not the least irritating
as the song of sparrows, or that of canaries...
these "defenders of free speech",
sound more irritable than the sunrise choir
of bird song,
for all their championing of existential
darwinism, they sound more, more
irritating than the laughter of hyenas...
did these people ever put this observation
into their "right" of a freedom of "speech"?
to be honest, i sometimes find
the buzzing of refrigerators more interesting,
the white noise of ambience,
coupled to a music genre of some comparable
electric hive;
    i find the "freedom" of speech
as irritating as anything to be made spoken -
at least the birds sing uninhibited,
thoughtless,
       but man was gifted with the decency
to think...
     evidently americana teaches us:
there is no decency of thought!
there's only the decency to speak!
well then... i wish you sounded as beautiful
as birds during a sunrise...
sadly... you're not going to speak at me
a worthy compensation,
for you have transcended the dasein of
a springtime sunrise, and the waking of
the birds' libido...
         your "freedom" to speak:
is like a stalemate at a pensioners' house:
not enough deaths to fit the yawning budget.