Love Thy Neighbour

A Lament

Today ‘we’ have voted not to love our neighbours
Quite as much any more, to take a break, have some
Space, it’s not me it’s you. Now it’s me

on my own, heart beating more and more
The whole night through, waking with that sluggish
Sense of failure, of something gone wrong.

The morning head weary exhaustion of breakage
And somehow it’s my fault, and I don’t know
How to fix it. A nation of voyeurs forced to

watch the burning of their country by
the school bullies, who are laughing,
Like the kids in the reality lord of the

flies who smashed it all but then cried
Cos it was smashed. I can’t use poetry now
Except for this, a stilted form, and the

storms gather outside, the storms celebrate
The victory of destruction. As a child, anything broken,
Spoiled, and I was off, I hid it, couldn’t bear it.

Now where can I hide my country?
It is here. A weeping child again, I try to
Stuff it behind the sofa, but it is just too big.