Who knows where it began

Who knows where it began

They say it was before

The waters rose,

When people could walk over from the continent

I wonder what the first settlers

Thought of that

In the years that followed

When there were no boats to sink

Perhaps there were refugee centres

Until it became clear

They all wanted the same thing.

Surrounded by trees

Sheltered from the wind

Waiting to discover England

Could be built from small things

Into a monster.

Old women with swollen hands

From spinning Jenny’s,

Sorting fish,

Old men black with dust

Fallen on hard times,

Gathered together

In village halls to praise

Jam and Jerusalem.

Racing pigeons,

Finding solace in the freedom

To fly

Feeling grounded in community,

Felling trees,

Building cities out of daydreams.

Concrete plans

Were the death of the old ways.

Miners are ghosts in the machine

Grinding the bones

Of urban decay.

Nobody will survive the cull

When this once-green land

Becomes a museum

For the avatar

Browsing history

To compensate for a lack of heritage.

Bring on the Luddites

Smash through the barrier

Of all progress is good progress

The world was populated

By the myth makers

To establish a closed system

For true believers

Where freedom is a Bio-pic

Only available as a video rental

From a secondhand store

On a dirty street

In a rundown town

Sucked dry

By the heat of the city

And levelled by urban planners

Seeking to build a motorway

Through a dust bowl.