SOCIAL CLEANSING
Up with the drawbridge
down with the portcullis
close the fridge
screw back the top of the coke bottle
to keep in the fizz
they said an Englishman’s home
was his castle
it was something he was entitled to
without any hassle
then came the right-to-buy
and that property-owning
democracy
became the great lie
when speculators became the
autocracy
it’s out of good council areas
and down the road
to a less salubrious area
for your new abode
and maybe even further afield
far out of London to Birmingham
to which you must yield
away from friends and schools
a social pogrom
it’s the slow demise of council
housing
a Mrs Thatcher-Blair hermaphrodite
arousing
with premeditated apologies
at their government’s privatising
methodology.
Wilson John Haire.