Stitched Shut

transient identities

replacing communities,

old-timers lamenting verses 

about forgotten dignities,

they’re coming in dinghies

and you can’t do 

a God dam thing about it,

you want popularity 

change your sexuality,

the pillars of patriotism 

toppled years ago

didn’t you know?

didn’t you hear them fall?

were you too distracted 

trying to have it all?

burying your head in the sand

was the precise moment

you let go of the motherland?

she’s dying as the virtuous

inadvertently stab a knife 

straight through the heartland 

where is home?

when hunters by night

are free to roam,

we’ve got a country on loan

and we’re all paying the interest

whilst the sexual deviants

in parliament normalising incest

capsizable, unrecognisable, 

those who lost their lives

in 1945 would be turning  

in their graves,

here we are now

slaves to the wage

our rage is caged 

our mouths stitched shut