Poets For Corbyn

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The Seven Ages of a Labour MPIan BirchallAt first the student,Posing and strutting in the NUS.Then the droning speaker, with his briefcaseAnd shining Sunday suit, creeping to hisSelection Committee. And then the loyalist,Lying like trooper, with a woeful tiradeMade to his Leader’s buttocks. Then an MP,Full of strange terms, reading from autocue,Lacking all honour, shallow and slick in quarrel,Seeking the bubble reputation,Ever in the camera’s eye. And then the minister,In fair round belly with free dinners lined,Eyes insincere and clothes of formal cut,Full of cheap lies and dodgy evasions;And so he makes his pile. The sixth age shiftsInto the mean and cliché’d veteran,With spectacles on nose and perks on side;His youthful hopes, long lost, are far too wide<strong>For</strong> his shrunk mind; and his big manly voice,Turning again toward childish platitudes,Repeats the old slogans. Last scene of all,That ends this uneventful history,Is Second Chamber, full of mere oblivion,Sans teeth, sans brain, sans guts, sans principles. 6
Until I Built the WallMichael SchmidtUntil I built the wall they did not find me.Sweet anarchy! attending quietlyTo wild birds or picking the blackberry.Trespassers did not know they erred and cameIn and away, leaving the land the same.The hunter went to richer ground for game.Tending, profitless, my propertyWhich no map mentioned, where no metal layIn veins beneath the surface of hard clayAnd bristle grass, I watched my livestock -- scoresOf lizards, armadillos, and the birds --Free citizens. I had concealed no snares.Mere ground. Mere nothing harvested or sown.But how the shadows made the rough designLive as a landscape for the man alone!So I grew proud. That's why I built the wallOf stone and mortar, and I drove a nailInto a stake and hung a sign to tellThe wanderer Private Land, with guaranteesOf instant death for anyone who triesTo enter here: leave hope. Vain promises!Who would I kill or could I kill?Before I turned a servant of the willTo mark my ground, indeed, who would I hurt or kill?Now peering from the rim of my high wallI see the plain outside abruptly shrillWith enemies I do not know. They call 7
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Poets For Corbyn

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