* Carol Ann Duffy
* The Guardian, Saturday 13 June 2009
How it makes of your face a stone
that aches to weep, of your heart a fist,
clenched or thumping, sweating blood, of your tongue
an iron latch with no door. How it makes of your right hand
a gauntlet, a glove-puppet of the left, of your laugh
a dry leaf blowing in the wind, of your desert island discs
hiss hiss hiss, makes of the words on your lips dice
that can throw no six. How it takes the breath
away, the piss, makes of your kiss a dropped pound coin,
makes of your promises latin, gibberish, feedback, static,
of your hair a wig, of your gait a plankwalk. How it says this –
politics – to your education education education; shouts this –
Politics! – to your health and wealth; how it roars, to your
conscience moral compass truth, POLITICS POLITICS POLITICS.
Ms Duffy makes sarcastic use of phrases such as Tony Blair’s “education, education, education” and Gordon Brown’s “moral compass”.
Duffy is the first female poet laureate in the post’s 341-year history.
The poem aims to attack the effect of politics on idealism.
