The lost ideals of British socialism,
expelled by the dark shades of unfettered capitalism,
now watch its ghastly wraiths shackled with bloody monitors,
screening the endless news footage of a collapsing society,
and the rise of the consumptive individual.
Remember,
those torn from real work to be condemned to work in retail
and those in retail on the now Low streets, condemned to workfare.
At this time of loss, let us mourn;
The clinker grey faces of our miners slaughtered on the
run
by truncheons down the streets of England’s satanic coal towns.
The grey ghosts of demolished and lost steel communities,
and
the emptiness of docks where no more fisher men set to
sea with their craft.
The once mighty trade unions, and the right to a fair
wage for a fair days work.
Remember,
the bent backs of the men and women, now cast as steps on
which
the voracious ascend to purchase fat filled shares in our
squandered national pride.
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| Photo:Huffington Post |
At this time of loss, let us mourn;
The destroyed palaces of manufacturing topped by crystallised
markets,
Computerised temples in which traders profits from the bullion
of our pensions,
Once rich, now nothing more than broken nest eggs of
dreams;
A time when money was earned, not remunerated in gratuities
and bonuses,
and a pseudo-existence of equities, bonds and subprime
mythologies.
Remember,
the once lauded system of social housing now sold off,
the homeless for whom we now have no homes.
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| Photo by: Graham Whitby-Boot/Allstar/Sportsphoto |
At this time of our loss, let us mourn;
The loss of our dreams; our social welfare and socialised
healthcare
denationalised to make profits for shareholders not stakeholders.
Our taxes, which now fund profits rather than the public
good.
The principle in which work paid, instead of work keeping
workers
dependant on foodbanks, and welfare for a living wage.
Remember,
those whose children died for a folk story, some entombed
deep
in the sea, for a land no one needs on a windswept rock
to nowhere
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| Photo by: Srdja-Djukanovic |
At this time of our loss, let us mourn.
Weep loudly, shriek and beat your breast so the
thunder of those screams
pierce the heartlands which were once our home, once our aspirations,
once our England,
instead it lies with festered wounds, mouldering and gored
on Orgreave’s field,
stomped on in impiety by those wicked boys from Eton’s
fields.
Yet, for the sake of history’s accuracy,
remember,
this, our ancestor’s toiled soil, was merely beaten to
death
with an exocet, an iron, a perm, and a handbag.