FLYTING - Number 1 - Brexit
 

The notion is to activate the ancient - and combative - poetic practice of 'flyting' in verse exchanges, focussed, initially on a subject/theme but always kicked off by verses which open the way to being responded to, not only on the ostensible subject/theme, but also, with suitable contentiousness, on their manner of expression. The practice in Renaissance Scotland was often a pretty vituperative one and we should try to avoid replicating that of Dunbar and Kennedie (qv.) but short of reduction to ad hominem abuse - without due poetic cause shown - the exchanges can be as robust and scornful as contributors have the skill to display. This will not prove to be a place for 'vanity' posting as every contribution will be open to withering assault.

There is no requirement to match any particular form. The only requirement, I am suggesting, is that contributions should be in metrical verse. NO explanatory epigraphs or prose introductions - just verse, head to head with verse. (Where parody/pastiche is involved, there should be the normal "With apologies to..." form of acknowledgement.) To set some limits, I am also proposing that each Flyting Subject/Theme should run for no more than two weeks before a new one is started.

So.... having floated the idea on the General Talk board, I'll take the first rounds of in-coming fire by posting the opening poem.

JERUSALEM NO MORE
or
AN A TO Z BREXIT

And did some Peers in recent time
Brace up to England’s ‘Brexit’ queen:
Could even bishops hold the line
Denying light to hates extreme?

Enquire who’d countenance such crap,
Foredoomed to fail our NHS?
Grasp, if you can, who’d blundered here -
Her sneer or hates mean men express?

If we had MPs worth their weight:
Just half the guts they’d gladly spill:
Known not for self: just good, not great,
Liege lords would lesser roles fulfil!

May’s madness will not win this fight,
Nor Scotland’s sword sleep in our hands:
Oaths scorned will stir, as Arbroath’s right
Proclaims our place in Europe’s lands.

Quite what Theresa hopes to call
Retro England’s truncated isle?
‘South Britain’ sounds so passing small -
Trimmed down and “cut” in Osborne’s style.

Undone, uncoupled and unsung,
Vainly prating Gibraltar’s rock,
When she goes down, the angry young
X-factor will supply the shock.

Youth, wronged by lies, some shires may save;
Zeal, minus sense, dug Britain’s grave.

(With apologies to William Blake)

Speechless!
 

Speechless

If I knew
whereof
I’d speak,
I’d speak:
I don’t,
so won’t.

I'd add my thoughts, but dursent try,
as Nigel's set the bar so high!

Ssh, shh! RCL I won't tell. You could always pick up the US angle on the subject or go for the poetic jugular - but, thanks at least for showing interest.

Forgive me Nigel, if I am so dense;
Your rhymes are good, but I don't get the sense.
But then, again, I am a Yankee chump
Who still can't figure out our cussed Trump.

Wind back the clocks, cut off the dialogue
Prevent entente with words like wop and frog
Silence the Ode to Joy. With muffled drum
Bring out the worst and let the chaos come.

Let strange planes circle moaning overhead
Confirming that the thing we made is dead.
The once-unthinkable is coming true.
Let all our passports once again be blue.

They were our North, our South, our East, our West,
Our guarantee of safety in our rest,
I helped to build the story, sang the song;
I thought that it would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out the dozen;
We have no traffic with a European cousin;
Blow up the tunnel, burn the brotherhood,
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Should Britain stand with any muscles,
Then she must be led not from Brussels!
No cog among like 30 Nations
Pipelined the E.U.'s last dictations,
No subject to its sprawling boards
And such dull bureaucratic cords!
k

Auden, it seems, is yet living at this hour.
Ann's channeling has thus revived his power.

Once along the Scottish Border
Roamed our Douglas, known by colour -
Either Red or else the Black one -
From his sallies, foes withdrew.

Now New England’s bard’s a Douglas,
By what tincture shall we know him,
Flaming Red or Black like night time?
No - he’s Brown and courtly too.

But this change, Trump will not favour,
For he’s haunted by their sequence
Crossing lights, from Reds to Black men
Then come Browns, his nightmare hue.

So he seized May’s ‘Brexit’ handhold,
White, if bloodless and retreating,
Shy of unions, prone to break-ups
But Old Europe she’d eschew.

Can such ‘special’ besties flourish
When ‘He’ finds ‘She’ has new borders
Drawn through Ireland, Scotland severed?
Exiles’ votes he’d hope his due.

So May’s looming, naming problems,
Like his placemen, long abandoned,
May unite the ‘Brexit’ shambles
Changing States from Red to Blue.

There’s a subject for our Brown bard,
Fit to tarnish all that gold glitz
Trumpery that only Hitler’s
Elevator also knew.

Dastardly bastardry!
Nigel unwittingly
took my good name and he
won't give it back!

Nobody knows it, but
I am related (though
only by marriage) to
Douglas the Black.