THIS BRITAIN (2021)

THIS BRITAIN - 2021

by edenbray
.



I woke one day in that dreadful season 
pulling wallpaper from the drabbest ceiling
i heard the cuckoo in my head, a sound 
i’d come to dread and larks ascending and
descending to an unmade bed where 
art lives for art’s sake ‘neath a poem 
of the bard William Blake

I woke in context of a bad dream 
where monsters cavort and roll their 
pale green eyes beneath the wonder 
of clear, bluish skies, the wolds of 
March on a winter’s day in a land of
penicillium cheese and home grown 
ale from where the dance of America 
set sail

There, the rocks of nature: 
sandstone, limestone, granite 
mountain plundering streams 
where Wordsworth said to Byron 
'sell me one of your dreams 
for a sovereign and a ha’penny 
for whosoever shouts the loudest 
up on Bleaklow carries home a
pale of sphagnum moss for the  
younger Bronte.

Hardy quipped midst the rose 
hipped ships of my Dorchester
Ariana bows to her bee loved 
Manchester whose losses are
not lost upon the truly holy from
Lindisfarne to St Michaels Mount
and Gwent as we were taught 
to wait in an orderly queue
in tower block rain for a ticket
that is money well spent

The wood chip paper falls from 
the walls, i dream of Deborah and
the common people, spires and 
chimneys, Lowry men, street dogs
Cambridge punts and steeples  
it is time to wake up and dress 
the children, gather wood, to
honour what is good

I caught a circle in the sky
the RAF fly around above the
fens, the marshland and the wild,
wild sea as gannets patrol the coastline
from Argentina; pirate birds disgorge 
the Arctic tern and geese winter 
from Siberia; we welcome seaside 
entertainers; standup Jimmy Carr and
the Proclaimers who need no retainers

Our history is a Book of Kells, a Magna 
Carta, a Road to Wigan Pier, the 
Order of the Garter; questions
in an antique quiz for a Bamber 
Gascoigne starter and we all saw 
Gazza cry; Shankly, Stein and Busby 
with other fish to fry one Friday night 
in Bootle with Ringo, Richard Starkey

Such malarkey, tis’ not a limerick 
by Edward Lear brings good cheer 
to people dressed in khaki overseas
in a pea green boat it rivals not
great poet Dante yet if divine comedy  
is your desire pull up a chair i'm here
all week for Will Hay an’ Georgie 
Formby, you're having a ‘giraffe’ laugh 
until your sides ache and split in two

For we own a solid culture out under 
the stars – Olivier, Rutherford, Sir 
Alec Guinness, Richard Burton; of 
early-day saints, the goons, salt 
of the earth shopkeepers, flat caps,
Scots and Irish Dragoons, Willie
Shakespeare on the village green
where do the Kinks take banter 
from Noel and Liam Galacher and
Damon’s Blur

Listen O’ “Bright star, would I were 
stedfast as thou art” were I to begin 
again in any other hallowed tone or 
were i to feast on luncheon vouchers 
inspired by Earl of Sandwich, of 
cucumber, egg and cress, buttered 
bread, playing cards and cricket 
the ambiguity of reason attested to 
in season by likes of John Keats, 
Wordsworth, Benjamin Zephaniah

Oh Britain roll your blood-red carpets 
down and welcome a history of queens
kings and royal swans; a history of 
commerce and monetary exchange
Fleet Street, the Bank and Drury Lane
Corgis, the Hillman Minx, Hawker 
Hurricane aeroplanes; legends that
show quiet disdain for our current 
unholy inaptitude

Stand around Stonehenge or from 
whence those stones were hued:
multitudes, whether Whitman or
Pollock imbued, left us in the lurch
America so bright, America, born of a 
virgin bride taken from Great Britain’s 
side as the rib of Adam’s sleep where 
pioneers and pilgrims now gently weep
the pagan circle so nearly complete

Barter not the charter of the Mayflower
sweet English rose must again send 
her roots out deep, stand alone in 
her seas, build her castles strong as
Lancaster and Stirling, Carrickfergus,
Caernarfon, we have no further duty 
of regret, no one has taken greater 
blame of colonial shame all disperged 
in past Christian blood

Same blood we left in Flander's field 
or spilt in building civilisation’s honest
moments, we for long enough were
tied to Moses' burning bush, laid bare 
on Isaac’s alter, tho' we attested the 
democratic oath more than most and 
so, this Britain shake your fiery mane
shout your roar, a dragons at the door
give him no quarter, fight for your sons 
and if needs be die for Mrs Brown’s 
lovely daughter