River Dee Chester

At the height of summer, a company

legally entitled to make money

from a natural resource, discharged

raw sewage into the river that flows

through the antique city where I live –

the waters where salmon leaped and spawned;

John Milton’s ‘wizard stream; upon whose

current, Edgar the Peaceable, King

of the English, was rowed upstream by eight

vassal monarchs for his coronation;

and which Ptolemy put on his world map.

 

As yet, you ain’t seen nothing, folks! Three days

after her late Majesty was lowered

into the family vault, a Bill was laid

before Parliament. It has a sunset clause.

After New Year’s Eve in 2023

whole libraries of legislation

will be immolated – regarding,

for example, the pollution of rivers

and sea shores, the preservation of wild life,

the protection of pregnant workers,

the safety of products, and holiday pay.

 

Perhaps when the turds are jostling below

the terrace at the Palace of Westminster,

and the miasma evades the air con,

there will be enough good women and men,

true representatives of the people,

to remove this government of whining,

hollow clowns, led by yet another useful

idiot, these self-indulgent, entitled,

deceitful puppets of straw corrupted by

the dark dosh of the neoliberal

masters of the universe – who are,

even as I type, dividing the moon

and stars between themselves.