Suppertime

It’s that time again:
erubescent men are boarding planes
to Fiji and Azerbaijan.

They will blow east and west
on airs of malt. The world will be
necklaced by these ambassadors

preaching love of literature
and other stuff they say
they understand, or even claim

their nation has invented,
things like passion and equality,
humanity and pride.

Avoid them if you can.
They come from a country
so stuffed with hypocrisy and cant

it explodes like this once a year.
The rest of the time
these man are sober

rotarians. Unionists. And that apart,
wouldn’t know a poem
if it bit them on the arse.