Turning the Present into History

Street corners, shopping arcades, office blocks

and run down factories, attract the minds

that have not moved on since nineteen-eighty-

five. Warriors, still battling phantoms

of vanished conflicts, that did not survive.

Their armor " denim and rags " that mock us

in imitation: a middle England

inflection; none too sure of where we stand

here, once pure water streams divided us

along party lines and vaticine dreams.

The rattling collection boxes, now

hold only a token: a penny for

the guy, who’ll cry “keep on keepin’ on”(you

remember that one, we sung with the old

die-hards at the gates of empty shipyards?).

Side-liners, applauding miners trooping

to defeat, stooping in worship of these

Helots, whose eyes, with cracked, backward looks,

show prophesy of the defeated.

Whose words smell of musty books, shelved away

in the hope that someday the working class

will inspire new chapters, to capture

the cinema of imagination:

scenes to pass down to new generations

of warriors who carry placards that

display the sorry state of yesterday

and a failure to say anything new

or provide a trailer for forthcoming

attractions, for they know that the future

is a distant memory. Still they chant

(the superstitions of socialism)

protest isn’t how protest used to be

anger being replaced by advocacy.

Though no one listens to comrades these days,

turning the present into history

Reviews

[Siliousneo]

i like how you have written this i hope to see more from you in the future