I **** the mood in a sour June,
opulent misery, scorched Earth,
exchanging platitudes with old faces,
full of *******; full of hot air.
Both sides of the fence
at war with themselves,
feigning inner peace and profit
across the beer garden table.

I talk of hangmen and floods,
child brides and dressing gowns,
my hometown under the mythic spell
of collective memory loss.
We have forgotten our place
in the comfort of our urban sprawl;
sirens caterwaul past the high-rise,
past the vacant church with locked doors
and the homeless on the street.

A commonplace emergency,
young male suicides, women *****
in the safety of their homes,
taught a kindness through physical force,
the way the gun drops to civilians
in countries saved through the filter
of television screens; of dust and distance.
I sit and write and think of ****,
of old loves, anxieties-
they call me crazy all the while
for not committing to the scene.

Now Afghanistan is a blueprint,
extended diagram of steady-state destruction,
a conspiracy of white man dreams,
farmlands bruised by machines of war,
by the ******* Boot,
the feeling we have been here before.
All the while, the illusion persists,
car parks filled with smoke, professional escapists
with their 9% lager, bags of tobacco,
and the megalomania of art.

I **** the mood of a whitewashed June,
advertised freedom, a mortgaged Earth,
exchanging currency for a chance of peace,
the zen garden smoker, the looted mind.
Both sides of the fence are collecting bones,
at war with themselves, whilst my eyes are red
and my philosophies, ******.
They call me crazy for dreaming of escape,
whilst never leaving the confines of home.