The world is getting darker

The world is getting darker.
Soon, we will enter the age
of inescapable romance
where sports days are softly lit
and squinting becomes retro.

Then the sky will dim
into a century of noir.
Bats in the highstreet,
open air libraries,
collars are back in.

But, once morning
becomes a matter of opinion,
communities will split,
body clocks untick,
continents will bump
like lovers in a powercut.

At first, things will be hard.
Seasons will be dictated
by a collective sense of loss.
And photography's a sore spot.
Then government initiatives
will encourage self-esteem
and reclaim the prejudicial language
from the age of the reading lamp.

"Natural light is part
of history's condescension.
Let "the dark ages twinkle
with positive connotations.

After a while, to use lights at all
will seem somehow regressive.
Torchbearers will be pitied
for their lack of imagination.
As divorce rates plunge,
and weight loss becomes
a question of aesthetics,
the bars will be full of silent
punters listening to a poet-cum-soak
at the end of the bar
describe an apocalypse
where the spaceships
bring floodlights.
Suddenly the world
is full of pores, dust
and the primary tyranny
of red, blue and green.
In the new world,
lit from above like a reptile tank,
texture becomes a subculture.
Aphotic revolutionaries
wrap strips of three hundred
percent Egyptian cotton
around the handles of doors
that lead to cavernous halls
where hems are fingered,
collars are up, hand shakes last
for hours. In these rayless meetings
plans are made:
"This is our moment
to reclaim the dark.
We are the great unlit."