the air was full
of silences,
sheep like
cardboard cut-outs,
tattered & abandoned,
trains creeping
guiltily
across an empty plain,
onshore
the thack of leather
on cricket bats,
a Prime Minister
cheerily
tweeting scores,
offshore
the crack of clubs
on flesh,
and,
while no one was watching
the ship of state
drifted
towards the rocks.