An imagined community

AN IMAGINED COMMUNITY

Where does the SMERD community exist?

Smokers, Meat-Eaters, Religious and Drivers made

a tactical alliance to resist

the Council in the year the Council had

a Secularisation Task Force. Now

that's morphed to Faith Concerns Committee, some

joke of SMERD Officers and wonder how

any could march to such a plural drum.

Is SMERD the future of the city? Or

is it, so far from being here to stay,

a common cause there's no more reason for?

The Mayor's mourning his son. He cannot say.

We get their leaflets in our neighbourhood.

Good neighbours. It's a tangle being good.

I wrote this sonnet in December 2009, for a competition from 'Many Hands' whose theme I have forgotten. I self-published it in September 2023, as a quote-tweeted response to an observation by the political commentator Chris Grey:

"I'm genuinely puzzled by the emergence of 'the motorist' as a political identity, as if people who drive cars have distinct set of priorities and values."

It's now been retweeted by Kent and Surrey bylines.