Poems

DISS HONOUR

After years of outlaw living
You accept an MBE –
Your mum, you say, would love it,
“It’s for her, it’s not for me!”

I hate the honours system –
It rewards a random few
With archaic links to empire,
Wealth and feudalism too.

Yes, I loathe state decorations
But I understand the bind 
Tempting some to taking titles
To impress and fund the kind

Of cash-strapped charities
Where gongs can open doors – 
It’s a terrible dilemma
When you’re funding that good cause.

But I think if I’d been offered
Those letters to my name
Mum would have been dead chuffed – 
But prouder, all the same 

To know that I’d refused them;
She’d have approved my stand
She never bowed to pressures
Or vainglory - and

And I’d be chuffed with her reaction,
That we’d meet on common ground,
Sticking to our convictions 
together… honour bound.