Everything is awful
And yet, we persevere
Leaving hope to poetry
To trundle on in fear
That one toe too far over
The party’s bread-crumb line
Makes weeding out dissenters
A mere matter of time
While power speaks for no man
And landed gentry frown
To battle one another
For the puppet-master’s crown
We’re plotting for a future
Most hope never to see
Still bargaining, unseated
And without a winner’s fee
But how to hold our assets
From the treasured hoarding trust
While shoring up economies
Still reeling from the bust
Can you perceive horizons
That might signal Finnish line?
I’m getting more myopic
Through these passages of time
And ravaged, lost and sleepless
With no comfort to be had
I’m all but feeling helpless
To prevent what drives us mad
External shadowed forces
May be mustering to lead
The ignorant through tripery
To see how Red we bleed
For driving all before us
While historic, still untrue
No plaudits for the chorus
Of Titanic bally-hoo
I’m not to know the answer
Though I wish, it is in vain
My child must be my Reason
For I voted to Remain
Katherine Shirley 