Mind-Sirens and Sand-Lines

There’s mad talented writers round here
who’ll never be great.
Had their minds twisted by the sirens of the state,
a swirling battle cry that gets a man into a fighting state.
Anywhere you look it’s kind of bait.
Take, for instance, fifty years of welfare state,
which, it seems fairly obvious to state,
was never well fair,
and then, when our thoughts are numbed up
with the dumbed up double-dutch
that doubles up as news-cover stuff,
shepherding us to pledge our trust
in Justin-fucking-Puddle-duck,
they pull away the safety net
and they do not even need to care.

Cos we’re out in the clubs smoking zoots round the back,
we’re crawling across town selling posh blokes crack,
we waste days in the pubs, growling at the Sun,
adrift in the small hours, howling at the moon,
if we work a bit harder we might get there soon.

They don’t need to care.
It will be soup kitchen queues and cardboard city;
sex-workers, crystal meth and surround sound TV;
low level skirmishes touching us habitually;
corrugated iron and gated prison homes;
unaccountable security and unmanned drones.

The answer not in any colour of rag at the news stand.
It’s not the red or the blue or the head in the sand.
It’s turning up and learning up,
conferring stuff, returning love,
it’s drawing lines in the sand
until we’ve mapped where we stand.
Principles eternal, not ageb-ound.
The playground game of merry-go-round resistance,
I’m down with join-the-dots not spot-the-difference.
We must clock what’s in common,
pass it to the next woman and hear what she’s got now,
things might seem lost now
but we’ll try again;
let them of the future know when they rise again,
that back then, there were them
who could dance with a pen,
or sing a drumbeat out loud,
make moves that could reach us,
freeze-frame pictures that would leave us speechless;
let them know that before them
lived all sorts who did care;
pass on the torch and keep the flame burning there.