Up there, two lovers stood still, face to face,
While life raced by, at its frenetic pace.
Some days and nights went by; the people talked.
And in the cool of autumn time, some chalked,
Upon inviting spaces on the wall,
These drawings of the lovers and their fall.

The country’s broke, but we don't care;
There's opportunity out there
For the savvy billionaire.
But not for you, mate, not for you.

There is no deal, but what the hell?
For our gang things are going swell;
We have high-margin stocks to sell.
But you don't, mate, you don't.

Chaos reigns, but we won't worry.
We shift fortunes in a hurry;
Buy up mansions down in Surrey.
But you won't, mate, you won't.

Cliff edge? We take it in our stride.
We pick advisers trained to hide
Our dodgy money on the side.
But you can’t, mate, you can’t.

Our stooges in the gutter press,
Who helped to bring about this mess,
Will benefit from our largesse.
Unlike you, mate, unlike you.

The well-placed Lord, the Eton boy,
Are weapons which we will deploy
To keep at bay the hoi polloi.
That means you, mate; that means you.

I prefer my actors live on stage:
Living, breathing, running around.
But sometimes you need a stiff;
I like them to be, metaphorically speaking, upstanding
With a military bearing and patriotic moustache,
Ideally tricked, or seduced, by cunning foreigners.

Once they are dead, I want them face down,
Fully clothed, shot in the back,
Being studied by a stooping policeman,
Or better still, an upper class pre-war sleuth
With a cravat and a monocle;
No need for ceremony with them.

A doctor arrives.
‘What seems to be trouble?’ he asks.
‘He’s dead, you idiot!’ cries the sleuth;
‘Make yourself useful. Get Lady Bounder here a cup of tea.
She’s fainted. Two sugars.’

Enter Inspector Dummy.
‘It looks like ******,’ he announces.
‘Give the boy a medal,’ comes the witty reply.
‘Oh, sorry, your Lordship. Shall I shine your shoes?’

Then there’s a sub-plot, a side issue:
The bones of a victim
Of a botched bank robbery
Forty years before
And the stiff was his grandson.

It’s a hard job, being dead on stage,
Or so I’m told, I’ve never tried it.
I once saw a ****** victim sneeze, twice,
Under a table in the library.
He deserved that kick; nothing like a good laugh.

It started with a humming sound;
To be precise, a long loud bass.
It pummelled the surrounding ground
And shook the boutiques selling lace.

In groups of ten, we clear up rubble,
Which no one asks us to explain.
The rich remain inside their bubble;
Sometime quite soon they’ll feel our pain.
For tomorrow, or the next day,
The whole thing may start up again.

I know the rules;
I play the game;
It’s not my fault;
I’m not to blame;
I feel no shame;
And yet I know

Things will never be the same.

In those days we kept a vigil
By his bed,
Holding his hand as he withered
On the vine, and we imagined his life
As something which, down the line, slithered
Inaudibly into the long grass, uncomplaining.
Outside, it was raining.
‘Just a few more days’, we said
‘Then there will be sunshine, no more rain.’
Was he in pain?

We never knew;
He lay still, quietly, there.
Perhaps we did not care?
But no, surely we did;
I’d like to think we did.

The ‘few more days’ turned to years,
Then decades, centuries,
And still he lay.
And still he lies
Today.

The children place the cheese;
The father gamely nods,
For he knows there's no chance
To catch the little sods.

The sunset had gone,
The sky had darkened overhead.
That was a fact, and yet
In the shrinking west there remained
That spread of orange hue, which clasped
The blackness of the knife-cut trees.

Then, just above, a patch of turquoise blue,
As light as the middle of the day.
Birds sang and tweeted into upright slumber.
Some geese flew home in prim formation
And in the distance two aircraft rose skywards,
Going, perhaps, to nowhere;
While, somewhere, in a garden,
A man sighs, looking up.