Hold Your Nose

Yes The Plan - as it is now, with some efficiency, being called Has plainly come to bear A quantity of political meaning not entirely contained Within its administrative wording To some, it denotes order To others, delay To others still, a more decorous form of alarm Whether such breadth reflects national seriousness Or merely the present habit Of loading unresolved anxieties into a single portable phrase May, by now, be less important than the fact That the phrase itself is functioning Not here Not now Not if you want to keep them out No, I know But in this seat That isn't what this vote's about You lend it here, you hold it there You vote for grit, you vote for glue You vote for someone you could stand If standing still were all they do You count the road, the ward, the split The second place, the swing, the spread You do not ask what song you love You ask what keeps one worse one dead This seat is different Every seat is different That's what we say on every stair This isn't hopeful This is local This is arithmetic with hair Hold your nose And lend your vote To the least absurd remaining boat Not your first Not even close Just someone likely not to boast This is choice In narrowed form A cautious body in a gathering storm Tick the box And do not ask Why dread now counts as civic task The leaflet says: "Be practical" The doorstep says: "You know the score" The spreadsheet says: "In nineteen wards They only need a little more" The activist has tired eyes The volunteer can smell defeat But still recites the sacred line: "It really matters in this seat" A vote to stop them A vote to block her A vote to freeze the thing in place A vote for maybe A vote for later A vote with someone else's face Hold your nose And lend your vote To the least alarming life raft still afloat Not your own But near enough To keep the loudest nightmare stuff This is care In damaged clothes A public act performed through private loathing's prose Mark the cross Then fold the doubt And tell yourself you helped keep something out Some stay home Some spoil the card Some say the whole thing's gone too far Some still come But not to choose To calculate what they can lose A fifth believes A sixth turns up A nation still fills every cup The seats all count The speeches start And silence gets declared a heart Vote here Not there Hold this Don't share If they get in We're done If she gets through They've won Take the hit Make it stick Choose the slow one Not the sick Call it duty Call it fraud Call it dragging hope across the ward Hold your nose And lend your vote To the least implausible emergency boat Not because You think they're right But because you'd rather sleep tonight This is how The grown-up game Turns fear and distance into duty by another name Tick the box And play your part Then watch them call it "the people's heart" No, no - I know But in this seat That isn't what this vote's about