Killing little England

We are legion
but we are insects

The bodies of our children return to us
from the killing fields
of Helmand Province and Hackney Downs
like intractable jigsaw puzzles

We are the benefactor and the begging bowl
the mountain and the avalanche
crouching in the dust of this perfidious Albion
our fingers like spiders legs
grasping for hegemony
our averted eyes, insanity

If every ragged word is true
the ignominy of this rudderless, ruined boat
shipping water with every new wave
if it is all true
and our narcissistic governors
lead us not into temptation
but to the very edge of the abyss
are we too addled by the shisha pipe of celebrity
too cowed by the obols that rest upon our eyes
to hunt them down until it is they who cower in sewers
and end them