They say London is a bubble
A cosmopolitan melting hub of cultures, colours, tongues
And prosperity.
But something feels wrong
An intangible crown of barbed wire wrapped round my head
An intangible coat of shackles round my torso
Cleverly leaving limbs free to move
To make me think I’m getting somewhere
To make me think I’m handling shit
But I can see the signs.
This empire is imploding,
Every new inch of virtual ground it gains it hoists itself toward its own end
A black hole whose epicentre is so strong good & evil are forced to
Conjugate
Procreate
Transcribe
Translate
Then replicate
Propagate
Monopolise
Indoctrinate
Into a whole new species of social values.
These chains of
Pessimism,
Fear of terrorism,
Commercialised capitalist Christendom,
Moaning about our schizo weather,
Resigned to the rise in loneliness, depression, suicide and DV,
Disgust of pigeons and uneasy tolerance of foreigners who’ve been here longer than them,
McDs, Nando’s, Starbucks and chicken & chips,
Mortgages, taxes, credit card debts and mis-sold PPIs,
NHS doing less and less to serve the nation’s health,
High-rise flats and homelessness increasing simultaneously,
Under-age geniuses educated on a curriculum
Where social skills are ancient history
As new technologies march in to talk for them,
The still-not-finished Brexit deals
And football.
But they’re rusting
Trying to gloss it over with another worst economic downturn since records began
It doesn’t fool me anymore
The blackness calls,
The chaos invisibly chameleonically shape-shifting the borders of space and time
What goes up must come down
This time it’s not just London Bridge
Fossilised winds of pseudo-monocultural Britishness
Are blowing change into parched lungs again
It can’t be stopped.
Regardless of whose beliefs, lifestyle or hegemonic socio-economic policies it hurts,
Regardless of how far the human race wishes to overtake the borders of its origin planet,
Regardless of how badly they – & we – need this system to continue
Because it’s our proof of man’s superiority over nature herself,
Progress breathes on.
Time to loose the chains,
Let the bubble implode,
Feel the level playing field on which we really stand,
Remember the lessons that global domination taught us,
Re-nourish our spiritual evolution in love
Of the world,
Other creatures,
And ourselves.
© One Tawny Stranger, January 2018
