Summer
It’s sunny. It may be a scorcher.
The cafés fill each town and village.
It’s perfect weather for some torture,
Murder, vengeance, rape and pillage.
After rains, the life is grand
And Genghis helps himself to land.
Where barometers have dipped,
Where the temperature’s been low,
Now new flesh and bone are stripped,
Left for vulture, wolf and crow –
Fantastic, now the sun is blazing,
How the tribes are ripe for razing.
George and Dave and Nick, young fellas,
Drenched and soaked and prone to flood,
Hiding underneath umbrellas,
Watch out for the sun, when blood
May coat a band of cheerful hordes
Waving large and sharpened swords.
Sun may stoke your lost libido,
As you think of seats and votes,
But when you reach for flip-flops, Speedo,
And think of hiring pleasure-boats,
Genghis Khan may spring a trap,
And make your heads go snicker-snap.
Click here for a BBC story
Click here to buy a copy of Bill’s poetry collection Ringers
Click here for Bill’s New Statesman research project
