‘Electioneering As PPC For The Labour Party GE17’
In East Yorkshire, near the Westwood
A seat was up for grabs; views of a race course
Horse chestnuts, oak trees, the Minster.
Cows sit on a busy road leading in to Beverley
And buttercups race with the clover.
The seat stretches like a chaise longue,
Put your legs up let’s analyse this Roman chair,
The North Sea eroding, villages, seaside towns left behind.
Schools badly funded, hospital closure,
Libraries, prisons, transport outrageous
Some places only 2 buses a week!
Ask yourself is the farmhand voting
With the landlord, migrants working;
Thinning carrots, picking daffodils
Boxed in the warehouses, daffodils from Lincolnshire
Sold – the best of British in Marks and Spencer’s.
On the chaise longue, dream therapy of fixing;
Ancient Greeks depicted in art, a daybed the Egyptians made?
Fox hunting, rabbit snares, pig farming in mass
Bred for slaughter, cattle go to market in Europe,
Gunshot to stop the swallows nesting in the chimneys
Conservation in the countryside generates an income too!
Johanna Boal lives in Beverley, East Riding of Yorkshire, and was Labour’s candidate for Beverley and Holderness in GE2017. She works as a librarian for the East Riding Council and in her spare time loves to read and write. Johanna is a published poet with her first collection published at Poetry Space, Bristol, UK titled, Cardboard City. She is also published in various anthologies, magazines, e-zines and websites.