Poetry: Tom Paine's submarine

Republican friends! Worried about how you'll get through the next few days? Well, we have our own heroes too. Learn from them.

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Tom Paine's submarine

At some point in the fatuous flotilla, I dream I see
a periscope pop up, by King's Reach; and Thomas Paine
surface in a one-man submarine, having come back to
check on us, semaphore out this common sense hymn:
Boys and girls, I gave you the playbook
and you give me this? River traffic jams and
sycophancy disguised as red, white and blue treacle?
I wanted fanfares for all of you, not for one
uncommon persistence, but I fear you have been
seduced by the inertia, the dazzle and the bunting.
Break those jubilee lines! Unpick her ermine corset!
Burn those empire-tipped spears! And when you
dance around the bonfire, tell yourselves:
we are all the wearers of crowns.