The Angel Islington 2022.

The Angel Islington 2022.

I sit in a pub in Islington

Not a stone's throw from the Angel

Where Tom Paine used his common sense

To avoid an uncomfortable

Moment in an age of reason

When his barroom treatise on equal rights

Was never extended beyond his vision of a world

Of free whites

Never a mention of slavery

Unless he sank an extra pint

Then he became the life and soul

Never an Angel

But a bit of a lad, or so they say

I wonder if this pub is any different

Full of noise and life,

As not half a world away

The air is rent with destruction.

I wonder if there is nightlife in Kiev

Decadent debauchery

In the manner of the Weimar

The cultural elite

Lounging in a republic bar

Life is a cabaret old chum,

It is what you make it,

Which might be an easy way to clear the conscience

When the easy path always leads

From your door to greener pastures

So many people use the past to justify

Their inhumanity to man

How ironic when the ‘Internationale’ is sung

To justify the pursuit of nationalism

First, you raise a white flag

And then you wave a red one

It is all in the nuance

Whatever truths may have been written in the margins

Nobody reads the text

They all just hustle for their freedom

And ignore what happens next

Heaven is full of the right people

My people

Oh dear people

Drop the dead donkey story

It is time to draw the curtain

On this vile promenade.