Ah yes, The Left!

A characteristically sober emphasis there On steadiness, limits, and the less glamorous obligations of office Whether such language still carries the emotional credit It once drew upon so freely is, of course, another matter Even so, taken together with pressures elsewhere in the field There are signs in this election that voters may, in some measure Be favouring the left Ah yes, The Left, that perfect mass One mind, one creed, one pointing class One set of views, one moral heft A single tidy bloc called Left No factions, feuds, or little wars No seminar coups in campus bars No splinter groups with notes and text Just one enormous seamless Left Which left? Which left? Which left did you mean The worthy, the wordy, the angry, the clean The leaflet, the lecture, the march, or the theft You'll have to be clearer than simply "the left." Which left? Which left? Which left did you mean The lawful, the mournful, the loud, or unseen The comrade, curator, online or bereft There isn't one creature called simply "the left." Perhaps the liberal human-rights wing With grave concern for everything They draft objections, calm and neat In sorrowfully impeccable sheets They cite conventions, norms, and courts Issue statements, file reports They disapprove in measured breath A very polished branch of Left Which left? Which left? Which left did you mean The worthy, the wordy, the angry, the clean The leaflet, the lecture, the march, or the theft You'll have to be clearer than simply "the left." Which left? Which left? Which left did you mean The lawful, the mournful, the loud, or unseen The comrade, curator, online or bereft There isn't one creature called simply "the left." Or campist anti-imperial grace Who've got the world put in its place A map where history's neat and flat The West did this, the West did that If facts object, they're gently trained To sound less structurally explained Nuance is bourgeois sleight-of-hand Please pick a side and take a stand Or theory left with footnotes drawn From dusk till well beyond the dawn They can deconstruct a chair to dust Expose a doorknob's hidden thrust A sandwich reproduces power A window colonised a tower You ask what any of it meant They say your question's violent Which left? Which left? Which left did you mean The jargon, the vigil, the permanently seen The pure and obscure and academically deft You'll have to be clearer than simply "the left." Which left? Which left? Which left did you mean The local, the vocal, the post-magazine The study-group, theory-group, hard-counterfeft There isn't one creature called simply "the left." Or activist status internet Whose causes haven't finished yet By half-past six they've found the sin By seven-thirty: cancel him By nine a thread, by ten a badge By midnight someone's changed the language By dawn the cause is old and spent Replaced by fresher discontent Or old-school labour, tea in hand Who'd like more trains and less of this Fair wages, housing, dentists, heat And something useful on the street They hear the others speak in fog And blink like a bewildered dog Then ask, through comradely distress: "Will any of that fix a mess?" The liberals think the campists crude The campists call the liberals shrewd The theorists find the unions blunt The unions say the theorists grunt The activists think labour's slow Labour thinks activists all glow Each left suspects the other left Of not being quite the proper left The lawful left, the awful left The mournful and performful left The union-hall and student-left The posting-through-the-ruins left The jargon-dense, the slogan-left The pamphlet-stack and broken-left The "read-the-room" ballistic-left - It's quite a lot, this Left Which left? Which left? Which left did you mean The earnest, the pure, or the permanently seen The leaflet, the lecture, the march, or the theft You'll have to be clearer than simply "the left." Which left? Which left? Which left did you mean The frowning, the founding, the red and the green You've named a fog, a fear, a blur, not a cleft - There isn't one creature called simply "the left." Ah yes. The Left Please allow six to eight working schisms for delivery