19:14pm,  23/08/2010

I

What names of high renown lie here within,
What wonders of a cinematic age?
What players of chameleonic skin,
What vast dimensions leap beyond the stage?

Withnail and I would walk this hallowed road,
Dreaming of turning visions into deeds;
Train-spotting trains of thought that overflowed,
Where levity had trampled karma's seeds.

Tread softly here and utter not a sound,
The scene is set, for all lost here below,
With all forsaken dreamers underground
And all who yearned to go on with the show.

For all the lost, forsaken and foregone,
Dead lips whisper of "Hunt" and "Cameron".


II

Walkways of fame, like dreaming colonnades,
Gold sunrise shoots that everyone admired;
Lost eras when producers all wore shades,
And divas turned up early and inspired.

Hot cappuccino served with bright ideas
In cool cafés and bistros of desire;
Their ghostly image flares - then disappears,
With all who held the torch of inner fire.

All those who now endorse perfumes and creams
And those in pantomimes on seaside piers,
Remember well who crucified their dreams
Replacing honeyed hopes with bitter tears.

Inscribed in blood, their torrid names live on
- Don't speak to us of Hunt and Cameron.


III

A beautiful laundrette, deserted now,
Reduced to an accountant's numeral;
Open the wine and slay the fatted cow,
To find the wedding's now a funeral.

And did we, in good faith, believe their lies,
Electing them to office, fuelled by hope?
Now strung along by feeble alibis,
And all because we gave them enough rope?

Hope is the dreamer's dope. We who despair
Are never fooled by optimism's glitz;
Sometimes we are too fatalist to care,
Sometimes we must accuse, where the cap fits.

The coalition's follies blunder on
Up the Junction, with Hunt and Cameron.


IV

Avert thine eyes, Tim Bevan, CBE,
A tempest comes, on terrible black wings,
A blight hath fallen on the industry
That used to bring such bright imaginings.

Our protestations have a Little Voice
That Whitehall deems too indistinct to hear,
Must we the free be faced without a choice,
Must everything we loved now disappear?

Tread softly here, for it's the final take,
No accidental noise disturbs the boom,
As art is crucified for money's sake
Respectful silence settles in the gloom.

Sometimes progress moves backwards and is gone,
Like bright ideas by Hunt and Cameron.


The End....?