Come warm your chap bitten skin
by the logs-on-the-fire picture
on the wall of this old bank,
picked up for a knockdown sum
by a cheap chain pub firm,
selling nostalgia and piss
on the back of their staff
and their cheapaschips lives.

Take your place in the corner,
stage whisper how things
were better in the old days,
when Summers ran endless
and England was English
and who won the cup anyway?

And how you don’t really care,
but why don’t they integrate?
Mind, they’re all the fucking same
but you can’t say that anymore.
All these PC do gooders,
trying to tell us what to think.
Well listen Abdul, this is England.
Engerland! Engerland! Engerland!

And we’ll sing and we’ll sing
about how as little boys
nobody praised us,
nobody loved us
and nobody tucked us up in bed.

And how it never did us any harm,
it’s just we like raising our right arms
to show we belong
to someone, anyone.

Harry Gallagher is a poet and performer based in the north-east of England. His collection Northern Lights is available from Stairwell Books. This poem is from English Jack (Black Light Engine Room Press, 2020)