I
May made a snap call for Polling Day,
time to mark man’s hard won right,
women’s even longer fight, for that
fiction called Democracy. Cast away!
Candidates call from opposite sides:
Strong and Stable, Fairness for All.
Empty promises, sit on fences,
fiddle expenses. Brexiteers collide.
We’d rather vote for TV stars,
sports personalities, latest evictions,
B list celebs (ignore their convictions).
So we got Trump and risk a war.
II
The allies fought to free the Poles,
to save them from hard labour.
And now they labour hard to save,
to fund their absent-father roles.
We want their skills, low rates of pay,
watch each with awe, as they flog and
slog away. But will we find room to
school or house them? Alas, no way!
Today we simply say they’re Migrants,
the darkside of this global life,
where people live where’er they like.
Next, I expect, we’ll call them Vagrants.
III
They planted flags in coldest climes,
points we deem as North and South.
Shackleton, Hillary, Amundsen too,
both poles trod by fearless Feinnes.
Getting there was all that mattered,
only true heroes could roam so far.
Now we just go to seek out oil,
drill and destroy, the silence shattered.
Great Scott! Carbon is our latest crime.
That ark of arctic foxes, polar bears,
and muskox melts. Our seals are fated.
They too may be gone for some time.
© Allison Hill, 2017
