I
Are you maybe Friends with a Museum,
Or a Hospital? And how’s that working out?
And is it for their bants, or for their pub jokes,
Or because they’ll be there for you when you’re down?
Or have you fatally miscalculated
The nature of this friendship after all?
That really you’re just no more than a sidekick?
Part of an entourage to big them up
On the promise that one day, if you stay loyal,
They let you see one of their prized possessions
Or meet them, round the back, and secretly
See where they dump the bandages and stiffs?
All in all, with friends like this, I reckon
Your need to make some more friends your own age.
II
Do you love your country? So, is it your lover?
Do you engage in foreplay? Tenderly?
Does it say “I love you”, then bring flowers,
Whispering sweet nothings in your ear?
Or does it simply offer tracts of soil?
Maybe a mountain top too, if you’re good?
Then press your face against the cupboard wall
And push its thick, brash, sweaty bulk against you
Before withdrawing, sated, hum a tune
And drawl “stop snivelling” as it kills the light?
Do you lick your bruised lip as its dinner’s cooling
Kidding yourself that it’ll be home soon,
When you know its downtown with its cronies,
A geopolitical posse on the corner,
Flaunting paunches, jeering at the women
Until the whole gang flash their crinkled cocks,
Start fights and then see who can piss the highest
Up against the burnt-out nursery’s wall?
And does your heart beat faster as the key turns
At midnight and you straighten what you wear
And wipe your face and smile with desperation
As your country thuds against stuff in the hall,
Stumbling as it unfastens its belt?
And anyway, so how did you two first meet?
You think you’ve known your lover all your life?
You say you think it might have always been here?
You think maybe your lover is... your parent?!
Sweet Jesus Christ! You ought to ring a helpline!
Phone the police! Or stab it in the eye!
Flee to a refuge!
But, then, refugees,
Having run away from their abusers
Now find themselves besieged by other lovers,
Patriaphiliacs who’ll burn their camps down,
Country lovers fuelled by needy yearning
Whose love is cushioned in their hearts by hate,
Hate in their hearts that’s fired as hard as granite.
Then does your country thumb away your teardrops,
Propose a singsong to get your pecker up
And brag about the cellars full of lovers,
Told to try and win their country’s love,
Like those who proved their love & earned requiting,
Now at rest beneath the patio?
By all mean love your country if you must do,
If you like loving endless fields of mud
And the thieves and thugs who own and plough them,
Just don’t imagine that it loves you back.
It’s far too old and jaded to broach romance -
Admit you’re just another one night stand.