Goatskin

 

Writ on goatskin?

A tissue of lies,

Deals unknit

Before ink dries,

The absent crown

Still not her coronet

During lawless days

We won’t forget,

No kind heart sweats,

Sweats as vile pacts made,

No sweets at the palisade

Drafts delayed, rejected,

Remade, re-inspected,

Hush, do not speak it;

That untaken truth;

We do not have a government,

Wet ink gives no proof.

 

Now without opening

She spins, spins into

A longer stride,

Poison chalice at her side,

To bypass the beginning,

Towers falling, burning

The sepulcher is rolling,

We have a speaker

Yet no plans for them to speak

But broken lines intoning,

Hush, do not say it;

The lie “Secure and stable”,

We do not have a government

Just unsigned deals upon the table,

Unspoken, mandate unratified,

Parliamentary debate denied

Until the ink inscribed is dry

So we may examine the hide.

 

Antonia Sara Zenkevitch

 

This was written after the last election, which was a farce. It centers around an arcane piece of British law that involves writing on goatskin. Before this had been done and before the Queen had opened parliament, therefore allowing MPs to debate, deals were apparently already being made to further the Brexit mission. During that period it can be argued we effectively had no legally recognised government and definitely not one in which all our elected representatives had a voice. Disturbingly, a deal made between the Conservative Party and Northern Ireland’s DUP in order to get enough seats to legally form a government threatens the Good Friday Agreement and peace in Northern Ireland.