Britain in 2006

Babies in “I love al-Qaida” hats
are pushed by girls in beards and shirts from Next
and throngs who chant of drowning us in vats
of burnt dismembered flesh, their muscles flexed,
their blameless treason tying Britain in plaits.
Policemen guard them by the law book’s text.
Beside Big Ben and Winston Churchill’s statue
I parade my “Down with Trousers!” banner.
An inspector warns, “Sir, if I catch you
with that sign again, forgive my manner,
I must crush you like the shell of a cashew
underneath my steel-tipped leather flat shoe
and run your DNA below a scanner.
Freedom’s illegal this side of the manor.”