Brexit Cliff

Brexit Cliff

Talked the talk

Well mouthed it mostly

Most nights down here

Also most weekends

 

He did it for years

Swearing loudly

Bloody this

Bloody that

Whatever last to fall

From the paper in his lap

 

Screaming black headlines

Over the greasy flap

Of his stomach

Heavy on the bar

Like a beat up old car

Burned on a beach in Cypress

One too many times

 

The bar on the sand

Had failed to stand

Up to authorities gaze,

The back taxes nearly sank him

Sent him scampering into retirement

And his alcoholic phase –

Everyone knew that

 

A quiet village life

Tucked out of sight

Just him, the dog, and the wife

Enough to fit

In the back of a land rover

With a little left over

Stuffed in an old sock

For a rainy day

 

Which back in Blighty

Was just about every day

Around here it was anyway

But the place had

Certain compensations:

Tom the local policeman

Drank himself asleep by ten

Of an average evening

That was common knowledge

 

So anyone who was anyone

And around here that’s everyone

At least in aspiration

Drove to the pub

Hub of village life

For an unspoken

Local rite:

The regular

Shotgun lock-in

 

The place became

A bristle of

Haughty wives in twill

Egging on

Their bellicose beloveds

As they compared guns

And patted shaggy dogs

With long and panting tongues

 

Squire Winston,

Toby jug

Save the tricorn hat

He’d stoop to much

But not to that

Flushed of face

Jowls a-wobble

Locked in slow

Motion struggle

With the bar

He’s holding up

 

Unsteady host of the proceedings

Sustained by ale

Grown feeble

In a dim old age

– Don’t ask how old

The number tends to change

Always seen

To be running things

Though running’s

Well beyond him:

 

The vicar,

Mr Montgomery Collingbrook-Croft

Reverently held aloft

The customary stopwatch,

An antique number

In a silvered casement

Like the timer on

An old-fashioned bomb

 

He stabbed down

With the ball of his thumb

And turned the evening’s festivities on

A sickly grin split

His tiny pouting

Baby lips

 

Then his grudging congregation

Of backstabbing Anglicans

Poured through the door

In one thick clot

A lot like

Pig blood might

Slop from a bucket

 

Loosing eerie gobbling cries

The villagers

Ululating in unison

Burst forth upon the scene,

A xenophobic wave front

Crashing through

The blanket of night

 

Phones held out for torches

Winston and the rest

Fanned out wide

Wellies sunk deep

In rank pesticidal mud

Released with a sullen

Suck of sound

And weapon stocks

Were hoisted on high

Cradled abreast

Or joyously waved around

 

More like

Flags of death

Than the real

Flags of death

Out there in the big old world

Of which all were rubbish

Except of course

The Butcher’s Apron,

Never get tired

Of red white and blue

Do we lads? Do we, eh? No!

 

They were looking for

The queers who queered in the bushes

(Marjorie thought she saw

One at her window

Couple of nights ago)

And the lesbian tree protesters also

Were sought

(Fred’s got his eye on that old wood of oak) –

And definitely

Most important of all

The slightest hint

Of the cruel steely glint

Of incipient Islam

In face or manner or tongue

 

The merest melanin tint

Might presage

An immigrant swarm

Descending upon

Isolated farms

Like that rapey seventies film

With that Yank actor and…

What’s her name again?

– Susan Penhaligon

No no, Susan George it was

She was gorgeous…

Wonder what happened to her?

 

Let’s not start up

With all that again,

Brexit Cliff –

We know your views

Round these parts

Nothing new

But strangers won’t

And look what strangers do –

 

Worse than foxes

When they’re running loose;

Desperate and on the run

Your average Malaysian backpacker say

Is worth a cornered badger

Any day

 

You know the mess

The last one made

In the back of Bill’s new van?

You want that down the chip shop?

Dripping all over the post box?

I think not

But if you do

I’m not cleaning it up

 

Catch them as we can

We can’t be too careful

They had to send vans round in London

Three hundred and fifty of them

Least that’s what I heard

So we don’t have it

Too bad round here

Not compared to out there

Just keep them clear of a summer evening

Beat them at football and in trenches

And now we beat them in bushes

Like doodah’s great granddad did in India

Or was it to the Boers?

 

Brought his gun back with him

Big one it was

For elephants and such

Big old balls of lead

Crammed down the end

Blew up in his hands

You remember the story

Tony’s granddad

Or was it Rory’s?

Him with the metal hip –