Lo! How the Powerless are Falling

typhoid, Tyburn, People’s Charters,

endless jibing from the rich

once knit us in united stitch.

We stood in the indicted air

and tens of thousands gathered where

our folk were browsing for a chance

to wake from Empire’s smacked-out trance

on gassed and shellfired poppy fields,

on muddy ground, with blood-strewn shields,

but failure found us, we were captured

in the end by Blair and Thatcher.

Now the trend’s to fast unravel

all that stitching as our gravel

voices bitching from behind

all brim with hate for our own kind

in symphonies of petty brawling.

Lo! How the powerless are falling!

With our hour missed, forgotten,

with our spirit twisted, rotten,

passive unresisting tongues

sing “All for one and all for one!”

and “All for sun and stars and mirrors,

images of ladykillers,

masks and dreams of shadiness!”

as though the joy of life is this,

as though our choice is bulging wide

and bursting at each squashed-in side.

Well, curse the drink (and broken glasses)

of the malfunctioning classes!

Send our callous masters crawling

and stop the powerless from falling!

Guide your rowdiness toward

the current system of reward,

the sea of misty bullshit-spews

(where cellulite is sold as news)

that thinks the right to publish prose

that chokes with bingo, status quos

and blokes in golden football shorts

is why we trashed Herr Hitler’s ports.

Oh, somewhere brash and rich and southern

sits Britannia in her coven,

mitts both empty, nude except for

holographic crown and sceptre,

heart all traffic, gridlocked, calling:

Lo! How the powerless are falling!

Snip those sour weeds entwined

around the signposts of the mind,

that gagged and blind host to the plumes

of poison beamed into your rooms.

Rise up in streams of proud contempt

for all the labyrinths they’ve dreamt

to strand us babbling on a moor,

to dump us drowning on a shore,

to keep us down and neon-scented,

nylon-flavoured, regimented.

Rise, you slaves, and strike them dead,

just strike at last, paint England red

and catch the bastards while they’re stalling

and stop the powerless from falling!

Don’t kowtow to this transparent

throttling of your strength and talent,

bottling up those vast desires.

Think how our forebears lit the fires,

those crowds of toiling common folk

who overthrew the normal yoke

when Peterloo, the Jarrow marchers,

typhoid, Tyburn, People’s Charters,

endless jibing from the rich

once knit us in united stitch.

We stood in the indicted air

and tens of thousands gathered where

our folk were browsing for a chance

to wake from Empire’s smacked-out trance

on gassed and shellfired poppy fields,

on muddy ground, with blood-strewn shields,

but failure found us, we were captured

in the end by Blair and Thatcher.

Now the trend’s to fast unravel

all that stitching as our gravel

voices bitching from behind

all brim with hate for our own kind

in symphonies of petty brawling.

Lo! How the powerless are falling!