THE POLITICIAN

If they should die, think only this of me:
   That there's some corner of a foreign state
That will, for my time, praise me. There shall be
   In that rich place my baser stuff made great;
A dross which Britain bore, raised, privileged,
   Gave, once, its sons to con, its ways to spoil,
A body of Britain's, to his own good pledged,
   Believed by voters, blest by others' toil.
And think, this heart, all false smiles shed away,
   A gob of the eternal bile, no less
     Gives somewhere back
                     the truth by shrewd pens given;
Their stark judgements, words weighed well for that Day;
   And contempt, learnt of friends; and emptiness,
     In dead men's hearts, under George Bush's heaven.

                    (Apologies to Rupert Brooke)