You’ve watched the world
go by, grown prosperous
by your staid profession,
your stocks and shares.
Your care for your property,
your immediate kith and kin,
has overridden old empathy
for those affected by austerity.
Though, in principle, against
dwindling of the welfare state,
you baulk inwardly at increases
in your own income tax rate.
You’ve humoured friends,
activists who never gave up
the cause, ‘liking’ their posts,
their rants, while thinking
don’t they have anything
better to do with their lives?
Has it thus taken this fire,
this horror in Kensington,
to awaken you this late hour
from your lifetime’s slumbers?
go by, grown prosperous
by your staid profession,
your stocks and shares.
Your care for your property,
your immediate kith and kin,
has overridden old empathy
for those affected by austerity.
Though, in principle, against
dwindling of the welfare state,
you baulk inwardly at increases
in your own income tax rate.
You’ve humoured friends,
activists who never gave up
the cause, ‘liking’ their posts,
their rants, while thinking
don’t they have anything
better to do with their lives?
Has it thus taken this fire,
this horror in Kensington,
to awaken you this late hour
from your lifetime’s slumbers?
