A first draft… Lament for a Divided Kingdom (2026)….
Jotted this afternoon and inspired by discovering that in the UK some popular brands of cigarettes are now almost £20 for 20! Good grief!!
Still trying to decide whether or not to change the word ‘traitor’ (verse 4) for ‘canker’ …but thereafter I’d have to find a new rhyme for the final line of that verse… 
Lament for a Divided Kingdom (2026)
£4 for coffee!
£6 for a beer!
20 quid for some ciggies!
The end is surely near!
Demos on the highstreets,
Rape and robbery ever rises,
Knife crime all too common,
A country’s mental health in crisis.
14 million live in poverty,
Can’t eat or pay their rent,
A once proud kingdom’s shame
Run by the incompetent
They say what goes round comes round
They say you get what you deserve
They say karma catches up with you
They say the country’s lost its nerve
A weak old King betrays his faith
His Church calls him a traitor
The crowds no longer wave his flag
They ‘boo’ and call him ‘masturbator’
England’s Glory once so striking,
Britannia ruled supreme,
Now a match ignites the funeral pyre
While a dying nation screams
Cigarettes a pound a piece,
6 nicker for a beer,
When coffee hits a fiver…
Surely the end is here!
© 2026 al g smith | algsmith.com