November is the cruelest month, destroying
What once was for what will be
The snow will stalk our dreams, hoping
To fill the emptiness of another summer’s end
Earth will forget the dead
As I forget what it was to be a student
Labour fuels my hours, surviving
One year to the next, a broken man
Where is the Spring I once knew so well?
Where is my heart in this cruel world?
Where is time but in these broken images?
Memory is insufficient to be my food
The wind howls and I am the trees
Who have endured so much, again and again
The famous shadows on the ground mean nothing
They are what they were, darkness spreading
These unreal cities are all the same
With their cosmopolitan jargon and anonymity
Each trying to out duel the next, competition
In the workplace, in the dating market
One must be so careful these days
Friends depart without a trace, elders die
Families get divided, partners divorce
The winter dawn has its own beauty
A short and infrequent storm, the bloom
Of white to carpet our weary feet
On roads of fate, sometimes without shelters
Without kindred souls who know us deeply
The synthetic atmospheres of urban life
A society of white walkers, whose truth
Only mimics the fallen empires of liberty
The false figures of unemployment rates
Which do not count those who have given up
Indebted states, welfare states, police states
And the persistent rumour that democracy is dead.
