Swindon Community Poet Tony Hillier waxes lyrical about Brexit

By Jamie Hill - 16 January 2019

Arts and Culture

Tony Hillier, the people's poet of Swindon, has put together a few words inspired by the latest Brexit shenanigans.

The House Has Spoken

The House has spoken

it looks like Britain may indeed be Broken
May indeed be broken?

 

Democracy drained from his pallid crow’s feet

face; forehead lines many not few

a Charlton comb-over begins to show

from this despatch box camera angle

on this long-standing forward

who’s scored more protest goals

than any other parliamentary player

 

yet he still has confidence

delivers prepared speech immediately

those two thirty votes crush this prime minister’s

latest dreamwalk in her wheat field

 

He’s dropped his Brexit Bollocks!”

the loudest in the nation bay

both in and outside this Homeless House

outside which, blue Euro flags robustly waved all week

now non-stop Liberty Bell, death-knells democracy

 

Battle lines cross-hatch the Commons floor

There is no no man’s land
Fusillades front and back

How can he survive going over the top once more?

 

Dreamt of dad last night

father who from poverty and D Day parachute

never had an adult friend

for the rest of his wretched, house-bound life

he had no confidence

he too would table that vote of no confidence

 

Back in Swindon, Broken Britain high-flown

People’s Assembly Flag folded away

Facebook followers vehemently exchange

misunderstood beliefs through midnight hours

like seasoned table-tennis players

trying to decipher the spin of the Chinese whisper

batting curved balls over despatch box net

 

It can’t be done. Agreement cannot now be reached.

Someone will have to iron out the creases

in the MPs’ squirming faces

then face their voters at an unknown time

when this Brexit Shitstorm might never be forgotten

its battle scars fed into that pencil cross

regardless of mainstream and social media

 

As outside Parliament, big stage tv screen

video-orchestrates these Big Tops that have come to town

Breaking!” Half way round the world

in post-colonial Kenya we hear gunshots

from a near-failed state

Al Shabab shoots from the hip again

people die as the vote and pen

not mightier than the sword

 

Barking Bercow shouts at the shoulders of giants

Ordaaaahh! Ordaaaah! The noes have it! The noes have it!”

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