A Bumper Weekend For Photography

this is not criminality, pure and simple,
this is a warning, as common as fire,
that we are not the living dead,
your sleepwalking morons,
we are the discarded battery-operated dolls,
you keep in boxes,
programmed twice monthly,
to keep Tesco in business;
we are the failed face of the low,
the full force of the lawless
that you hoped to condition,
has only dipped its toe.

these are not copy-cat riots,
carried out by mindless thugs,
oh no,
these are the children you abandonned,
children of parents stripped to the bone,
of dignity, serenity, reason,
we are the children of black and white thinking,
your starved graduates,
your drugged underclass,
and for as long as morning means madness,
we will fight long and hard into the night.

so while you bury your nose,
in bird feathers and Beethoven,
cowering under snappy blue bedsheets,
wishing you were back home from school,
while you squeal for God,
to hold your hand and stop the bullies,
it may be worth bearing in mind,
that He is doing precisely that,
because your idea of peace,
is our daily dose of war,
and while you have never needed to fight for anything
but oppression,
we have nothing to lose,
but our sad little lives.

we know you have a plan b,
strictly in case of emergency, of course,
but when you turn off the lights,
the gas and the fuse-box,
and declare a ghastly civil war,
don't forget your conscience
before you slip away to your stronghold,
and be sure to remember,
your police force and army folk,
have innocent families to protect,
and homes that will become the unfortunate target,
of culinary dawn raids.

You say you have the answers,
that you'll find us and punish us,
but we have suffered all our lives,
as you bow to false Gods,
throwing us the scraps,
of your ill-gotten gains.
We will feel no pain,
when you have your way,
and stick us in costly boxes,
and while you say that we are sick,
it is you who is sick,
sick and tired and lost,
just another face on the box,
whose only identification with us,
is that of a comical parade.

this is not a double-dip recession,
it's not a new flavour of ice-cream,
with chocolate on top,
this is the niggling migraine,
before your deep depression,
the end, foolish man,
of everything and nothing,
everything that you adore,
and nothing we can't fix,
with brooms and brotherly love,
your looting of our spirit,
a grim reminder,
that we will only have ourselves to blame,
were we to foul our streets as you have.