Funeral Blues (aka Muffle all the bells, monitor the internet)

Muffle all the bells, monitor the internet

Prevent the people from protesting with a juicy threat

Silence the Sound-Systems with un-holstered guns

Bring out the corpse, let the celebrities come.

Let police choppers circle observing overhead

Pepper spray protesters with the cry She is dead

Put a quarter mile exclusion zone round the streets of St Pauls,

Let the coppers wear black DM’s for that kick in the balls

She was Finchley via Grantham, a bullet-proof vest

Her twenty hour mantra there is no time to rest

The long days, dark nights, her screech and bitter song

I thought her brutal siege would last forever: I was wrong

The Polling booths are not wanted now: shut down everyone

Close the mines that survived not dismantled by The Sun;

Pour away the whiskey and sweep up the barricades

For nothing good will ever come until her legacy fades.

A. Franks 17th April 2013

After W.H.Auden ‘Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone’