Good evening to you, first faint murmur of unrest,
no louder than a man adjusting his seat.
You’re not too late, welcome, settle down.
The common people call you:
H-rr-mm-ff.
I beg your pardon, I want you to speak up,
I heard you criticise immigration, The NHS, fundamentalism
and I came over to listen as I saw the corner of your mouth curl up,
but you were drowning everyone out:
Resource scarcity;
monotonous.
Terrorism:
vindictive.
Customs Unions:
dust-bearing.
Financial oligarchies:
unscrupulous.
One of the many articulate oft-repeated, aphoristic
frown-creators, that line and age your listeners and erode their hearts and mine.
If you think, If you think,
truth thief,
If you think you’re soft spoken,
ale-sodden seizure of another and yet another and yet another news-hour,
then hear me, H-rr-mm-ff,
you are so fact-less, so barely there,
that I can only know you through your mad twitter,
a skylark, out of touch, first here, then there,
then discarded
like the burdensome overcoat
on the back of your chair
in high Summer.
The exit’s on the right, if you were looking for it.
by Marcus Blackett