The Quiescent

They want England to be
As they remember
But not with tears or hurt;
Only by a harmless wish
As children make,
Which changes the world
Without fracture
And leaves no moral stain.
They say: “if only it had
Not happened; if only
This England was as we
Knew our childhood’s land to be.”
Then wring their hands
And salve their conscience
By this hypocrite’s keening.

They say they want
What a patriot wants,
But they love their soft lives
Their husbands and wives
Too much for that,
And their homes
And pretty jobs and the
Patronising liberal friends who say:
~He’s our pet fascist,
But not too evil really,
Just misguided.”
And they bow the knee
Saying: “Of course,
I’m not a racist”
At the merest hint of racial blame,
Pandering to the facile
Ease of the moment’s comfort,
Cast by a want of courage
And a tinsel wanting
Into dishonesty
And a shameful life

So they endure,
The years turning
From a time of purpose
To a mean spirited melancholy
Pierced with momentary bustling
Fears which flit upon
The mind’s countenance
And remind them of what was
Or could have been
Had they had courage,
And the future flares
To heat their tepid sorrow.
But guilt is soon caressed to sleep
Amidst the emptiness
Of a coward’s comfort.

Death of a nation

Dying not by honest means
But the coward’s hand,
Which fears to strike
Yet places poison
Upon the heart
To rot the innards,
Until a day
The canker sprouts,
To fresh foul air,
Through corruption
Long in secret hid.
Yet even when the sore
Proclaims its being
To the careless eye,
The small men turn
And tell their lies
Which deceive most
But leave some few run through
With a pain that cuts
Across the kernel of desire,
Filleting the heart
To strips of anger
That burn with the ceaseless light
Of a biological rage
At a needless treason, the turning
From a hard won thing,
That ease of mind wrung
From the centuries
Of jousting quarrels
To gain the prize of nationhood,
Which has no natural
End but the extinction of a race.