The granite harbour walls of Folkestone Flowing to a shapely lighthouse at the end now a drinking spot Day trippers sitting in July sun look out on chalk white cliffs And foam flecked waves France visible on a clear day but a haze obscures the view. So near and yet so far The once great ferry station a heritage site Trackless and home to fish and chips, burgers and tacos Platforms and signs still pointing to vanished trains from France The London and Paris hotel like a dowager who’s seen better days Overlooks the harbour mudflats exposed Like the station the ebbing tide has left beauty bereft of industry I sit glass in hand surveying the restless sea Seeing fleeing refugees from the guillotine Baroness Orczy and Dickens seeking English common sense Not French zeal and anarchy And Hogarth’s Gate of Calais with its mendacious French friar and hungry troops eyeing the Roast Beef of Olde England A plaque on the lighthouse remembers the opening of the harbour by the emissary of France when steamers and trains disgorged their passengers by the briny walls La Manche obscured by the mists of Brexit but French wine still welcome Below a border agency boat ready to take to sea to repel unwanted migrants No haven here. Who now the zealous and wild driven by the furies of Farage? Scion of the Hugenots driven from France A bottle yes but no sommeliers bon mots but no carers The Folkestone Gate truly closed though the waves crash against it The English vicar and thirsty sailors hanker for an aperitif But no boats sail from France and the Continent’s cut off!
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