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| The Last of England, Ford Madox Brown |
Small boats crossing the Channel are great,
not just because they make Sue-Ellen irate:
they reunite families, get folk out of danger;
crammed into a dinghy, no-one is a stranger,
like Londoners cramming the Tube in the Blitz,
they're united in braving the waves and the winds;
like Jesus' disciples in days long ago,
they have often sold all worldly goods that they own
and endured the contempt of both soldier and thief
in the hope of obtaining some measure of peace,
release from a grief inexorably sealed.
They risk all for deliverance unquaranteed,
walking for miles with ambivalent guides
(if they're lucky) to show them the gaps in the wires,
risking violence of every unspeakable kind
in the hope that in some land like ours they'll find
the freedom to live as whoever they are.
No-one crosses an ocean to get a free car.
People come here because they still think we are free:
they don't know that our government censors our speech
Well, Sue-Ellen, I'll tell you this right to your face:
I think crossing the Channel in small boats is ace.
outstanding 👏
ReplyDeleteSorry. That was me posting. This is awesome AJ. X
ReplyDelete