MR FARAGE AND THE TIDE

Mr. Farage looked at the coast and bawled,
through a BBC megaphone
sponsored by Gazprom, at the sea.

All this water, coming over here,
taking British shingle from British beaches!

Kelp coming up through the stone.
One high tide.
Mr. Farage plays Cnut
in his highchair, throwing all his rattles
at the oncoming flood 'til it turns
and hangs him dry.

A conference of molluscs applauds.
Crabs lick their claws and descend.

IMMIGRANTS

The shores are overrun with immigrants, flooding in
on high tide with the boats. False widows
hiding out in banana consignments and crayfish,
bigger than the native species, invading streams
the length and breadth of England. In some counties,
catching non-natives is legal due to the threat
to the indigenous white claws. They hate our laws.

Off the motorway, bodies swing at regular junctures.
Flies dizzy the corpses and beyond, at the horizon,
a distant city glows like an explosion. You drive fast.
Your headlamps, worrying the country lane hedge-bottoms,
riddle hares into the road. You are coming Deep South 
to the white folk. Here, their blood-cross flag swears
something gonna happen. Somehow.

THE SILENT MAJORITY

I went for them in working class towns,

where I'd heard their curtains twitched

at the sight of an asian or black man

bicycling through the main street.

Were they a whisper? Because I couldn't

hear their complaints in the kebab

shop or curry house, the drunks

were more focused on Bhuna and rice

and the police were untroubled

by women (whose husbands were out

at the rugby club dinner) in fear

of their vaginas being penetrated

forcibly by Polish migrants with vodka

laced breath. Their lights went out

at 10 and 11 pm and they went to bed.

Silence descended on the town like a shawl

on the shoulders of a sleep-dead aunt

and the majority snored.

THE POOR

You will find them under any upturned flowerpot

in any middle-class backyard. The dirt estates,

where living is sky high, 13 floors up in a piss-stained

lift that stinks of filth. They live anywhere the coppers

daren't come, where dodgy goods can be sold, unhassled,

in pubs and NCPs. It's a fluid market of heroin for TVs

taxed from houses in less affordable postcodes.

Here cash4gold flows through fingers like vodka

tumbles down throats. Each day they try

and plaster the waterfall, try breaking even, but nothing helps.

No-one helps. The most desperate chuck themselves off,

solve their misery in one final leap. The tabloids they read

call them mad or evil, pap them living their high-life

on dole sponsored caviar and Lidl baked beans.

They aren't helpless, just hopeless. Even key workers,

who brave staffies in rooms they'd refuse, won't bring money,

just scorn for their parenting. Nobody listens to anger.

The poor. The worst of the litter. Gas them! Wouldn't it be easier?

REBEKAH BROOKS SWEARS TO TELL THE TRUTH THE WHOLE TRUTH AND NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH

I don't recall. Don't remember. Never discussed 
that with the minister. Maybe mentioned. It could 
have been a party or a birthday. The Prime Minister 
never came. Wasn't there. We didn't threaten
any secretary of state. We persuaded. Put the facts. 
I don't recall. I never brought the BskyB bid 
into conversation. Maybe mentioned. Was never 
impolite over crudites. Didn't intrude on foreign affairs.
It may have been my decision. Maybe not. The Murdochs 
never told me. Not my brief. Not my remit. As CEO 
I oversaw two papers, not the corporation. Wasn't there. 
Wasn't me. Didn't text. Rupert who? David who?