Who are the British people anyway?
The ones who with Conservatives agree
And only them? Are we allowed to be
The people now? Are we allowed to say
A word against the government today?
Free speech, you say, but not the BBC
It’s not for that you pay the licence fee
To let the lefty woke get in the way
The who? The woke, the liberal elite
The Linekers, the Attenboroughs, you
And every other person in your street
Who disagrees with what the Tories do
Be quiet you, while we turn up the heat
It’s not as if you’re British people too
© Gail Foster 10th March 2023
Sonnet
He Always Was Conservative, Was Fred
He always was Conservative, was Fred 'The one thing they will never take away - Conservative and proud!' he used to say 'And British. British born and British bred' He liked a bit of bunting on the shed And Elgar, bits of which he liked to play Upon his trumpet on Election Day 'To keep away the immigrants' he said When Boris came at first he liked him well But then there was the party thing, and he Was not impressed by that, nor by the smell Of bullshit, Truss's rubbish, his MP - The list went on. He just said 'Fucking Hell!' And died, they said, in front of the TV © Gail Foster 21st October 2022
Blossom
~ A poem for the first of May ~
The first of May today. The maypoles stand
In silence. Ribbons flutter in the breeze
There are no dancing feet but only bees
On empty village greens across the land
I wonder if the old gods understand
That we cannot in ancient ways appease
The lusts of earth, or lie beneath the trees
Or even hold an absent lover’s hand
How beautiful the blossom is. It falls
In showers on the garlic flowers, blows
In snowy clouds across our garden walls
And gathers in the potholes. No-one knows
What happens now. The first of May today
The blossom falls, the blossom flies away
© Gail Foster 1st May 2020
If Greta’s Right
If Greta’s right, then we might have to give
our cars up, and stop flying and perhaps
stop eating meat – why how’s a man to live
without a car as big as other chaps
If Greta’s right (how can she be, she’s just
a girl, and what is more she’s slightly odd)
We’ll have to live on lettuce, and a crust
And shiver, and in winter go unshod
That Greta’s wrong. That’s easier to say
Much easier than looking at ourselves
It’s not as if we’ll live long anyway
Sod Greta. Pile the plastic on the shelves
And light the sky up bright with fossil fuels
The children lie. The scientists are fools.
© Gail Foster 23rd September 2019
Bus Stop Equinox
A sonnet on the subject of the Autumn Equinox,
and being at the bus stop at Avebury
Has Summer gone? Oh God, she was divine
Those crazy kisses, that incessant heat
Last seen by The Red Lion on the street
And off to Swindon on the 49 –
Another bus is coming, so it’s fine
That Autumn makes an old heart skip a beat
Her hazy colours, and her scents as sweet
As blackberries that tumble from the vine
We stand here by the bus stop, and the breeze
Blows chillier than yesterday – we wait
She won’t be long, although she’s sometimes late
(Devizes traffic, everyone agrees)
Less leaves than yesterday – we watch them fall
She has to come from Trowbridge, after all
© Gail Foster 21st September 2019
Quis? Ego
~ on the anointing of Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson
So what if it was just a drunken dare
Quis? Ego! Made at Eton long ago
I dub thee Boris of the Golden Hair
Servus, servum, servi, servo, servo
So what if afterwards they went to town
and ordered tiny sparrows stuffed inside
six rare exotic birds and chased it down
with virgins’ tears in mouths so open wide
one could believe designed to fit the poor
in at such times there are no partridges
Amo! Amas! Deus! Deum! and more
Dom Perignon! To Boris! Boris is
The Chosen One! So long ago, the dare
At Eton, or more probably, elsewhere
© Gail Foster 24th July 2019
My Name Is Ruth ~ a Devizes rhyme
You may have heard of me. My name is Ruth
It’s written on the Cross for all to see
I cried on God as witness to the truth
And died, and here inscribed my history
The tales they told of me – they said I lied
Defied my God before I breathed my last
They said they found the money hid inside
My hand when half a century had passed
You will have heard of me. A widow, I
Came all the way from Potterne in the rain
In winter, to the Market Place, to buy
Eternal shame – I only came for grain
All Wiltshire’s heard of me. My name is Ruth
I may have lied. To God be known the truth
My Valentine
An erotic sonnet for Valentine’s Day
*
It’s Valentine’s, and hopeful lovers wait
By letterbox and bed with bated breath
While legions of the lonely masturbate
And weep into their tea and wait for death
It’s Valentine’s, a time when teddy bears
Imprisoned in balloons are sent to say
I love you, be the answer to my prayers
And let me fuck you later on today
It’s Valentine’s. Oh go on, if I must
Bare all I’m glad to bare it all for you
I lay my rhyme before you and my lust
And naked raw desire as lovers do
My Valentine. How I burn for your cock
My Valentine. You turn me on. You rock
*
© Gail Foster 14th February 2019
Within the Silence and the Still, the Light
*
I heard an infant crying in the night
A new born lamb come mewling to the fold
It’s writ on ancient stone in words of old
‘Within the silence and the still, the light’
The moon is high, the mistle berry white
The ice shines in the darkness, in the cold
The stars are born, as all the bards foretold
Within the silence and the still, the light
Insists itself, as soft at first and slight
White shifts within the mist upon the wold
That lift as it comes rising rose and gold
Within the silence and the still, The Light!
New born in winter, beautiful and bright
Within the silence and the still, the light
*
© Gail Foster 21st December 2018
Gareth Southgate
I remember nineteen ninety six
like it was yesterday – the penalty
the way that Gareth kicked the ball and missed
I bet he never thought that day that he
would ever be back in the game again
his name engraved in Lions’ hearts, their
lips aflame with songs of praise, and men
in waistcoat shops, and women swooning where
he might have been. You’ve got to love a man
who wears his pride so modestly, who’s cute
who wears a new suit stylishly, who can
(if dream we dare) bring home the Cup to boot
If on that fateful day he’d walked away
we wouldn’t be here, would we. Let us play.
© Gail Foster 11th July 2018
gailfromdevizes 