Guy Fawkes Has Much To Answer For Poem by C Richard Miles

Each year we stop and set aside a day’s
Remembrance for the noble House of Lords
Whose recollections still so brightly blaze.
(To steal from Shakespeare’s deftly written words) :

Then was the Autumn of their discontents
Made glorious treason by that son of York’s,
Whose acts we celebrate in these events
With fireworks bright: that bold brigand, Guy Fawkes.

For he essayed, with soldier’s craft and skill,
Assisted by the others in the plot,
All parliament and James the Sixth to kill.
If he’d succeeded, we’d have not forgot.

When black gunpowder’s barrelled threat was found
That dreadful grey and wet November day,
In hidden cellars deep beneath the ground,
Whose sole intent was noblemen to slay,

Though other terrorists have done their worst
It’s only this event that we still keep
Anachronistically, when rockets burst
With fire and loudly interrupt our sleep.

And noisome bangs disturb our dogs and cats
And vandals use the date as an excuse
To shove through letterboxes onto mats
Incendiary bangers when they choose.

We waste our hard-earned cash to spoil the kids
By buying at the costly corner shop
The Catherine wheels and Roman Candles, midst
The squibs which, spluttering, fizzle to a stop.

In less than half a minute, what is worse,
A fortune dissipates in puffs of smoke.
Guy Fawkes would laugh and call us amateurs:
It really is a most unfunny joke.

For adverts make us burn our salaries
To add more sparks to light-polluted skies
And bonfires burn to make asthmatics wheeze
Whilst acrid woodsmoke irritates our eyes.

But now, to add more burden to our debt,
Fashion dictates anew, I soundly fear,
That celebration fireworks must be set
Alight, to indicate each brand New Year.

And more than that, for most days of the year,
We see bright colours burst out in our skies,
As bangers, rockets, rivalling stars appear
For any small excuse, before our eyes.

Now fireworks each municipal event
Denote, and make our council taxes soar.
It wasn’t just destroying government;
Guy Fawkes has more than that to answer for.