Is it any different now

Is it any different now

Everything progresses

Toward decline

They are interconnected

In place and time.

Scruffs on thecorner

Waiting for disorder

To come along

Coppers sit in vans

Street patrols

Are battalions,

Twas ever thus.

Brownshirts in Brick Lane

Swastikas hung in Bangla Town

Bring it all down boys

Bring it all down.

The old fella wants to see a doctor

Not on strike

Or on a conference call.

He is offline

Forgot his audio loop.

We can’t

Get ahead of ourselves

Everything catches up

Eventually.

Locals clean the street

Raise money for a refurb

Feel guilty

For being afraid.

Too old to be soldiers.

They were told

The war was over

The towns are as quiet

As the grave

When the dead are alive.

No monkeys were hung.

Soulless city centres

Awash with piss and vomit

Graffiti, not a Banksy.

None of this

Has anything to do with Wallace or Gromit

Or what it means to be English

We are all immigrants.

When the King is in town

There are flowers

And flags.

We are strange fruit

Two sides of the same coin

Performing Seals

You knock us down

We get up again

But for how much longer

When the promise of

A better future

Was wrapped in newspaper

Tied up in red tape

And sold in a futures market

Long ago.