Poetry Corner: An Old Faggot from Planet Fareham

I am English tradition personified:

Like Noël Coward and the Queen,

Or afternoon tea when the clock strikes three,

Mr. Quentin Crisp and plans to refurbish Big Ben,

Besides Winston Churchill’s Victory Vee.

I am English tradition personified:

Like Elizabethan fairies, red telephone boxes,

Or fish plus chips and mushy peas, Beatlemania,

The local vicar, canvas deckchairs, balls on a willow,

Brighton rock, as well as a saucy seaside postcard

Behind Sir Terence Rattigan’s well-made cocktail.

Hey, I am English tradition personified:

But, do I really wish I was thereabouts

With a can of fizz and my aye fishy pie

Served alongside a bigly oi saveloy

Or a reheated faggot from planet Fareham

Whereby, they call I Goosgob Dave?

After all, peasants neither kiss Norfolk tulips

Nor purchase an affordable Yorkshire goat

Or mouth rhymes for the runt of a Union Jerk.

Or expect Albion to come out of nowhere –

Our blessed Albion, our half-forgotten light, our tolerant Albion,

Our Temple of strange enchantments, our joyful Albion,

Our Holy Land before a United Kingdom of nightmares

Betrayed expatriate hours through an Indian summer,

Whilst proving my poetry a dangerous thing.

Yes, I am English tradition personified:

Like lollipop ladies, an old corner shop,

Football hooligans –

“Oh, what does a tart know about footie?” –

Class privilege and reptilian gentry,

John Cleese, my local Rose and Crown,

Tax evasion in public schools,

Concrete and crushing council estates

And an inability to find any political closure

Whatsoever,

In an English tradition personified.

PICTURED: Sunshine shines through the trees located behind the Fareham Shopping Centre building.