How Long?
How long before
enough is enough
and the sordid panto scenes
played out nightly
on our TV screens
are ignited by the poor
as they finally
really do take back control?
How long before we realise
that the electric in our meters,
the gas in our pipelines,
the fuel in our cars,
that once was all ours,
was sold off for a song
the same time as they closed the mines
and we all sang along?
When life is a choice
between cheap pasta on our children’s plates
and the bailiff’s spongy footsteps
squelching through our rusting front gates.
When ‘Let them eat cake’
is no longer a line
from a history book
but emanates from the street of shame
towards the houses of the dispossessed,
the battered and the lame.
When the folk who run the country
and who shamelessly lie
also own the companies
bleeding us all dry,
who in between their croquet games
toss out words like domiciled
through the leaden window frames
of their Georgian mansions.
When our rotted rattling stock
rolls its way off the rails
all the way back to its owners
in Munich.
When our water overfloweth,
taking our sofas and armchairs
bobbing happily along
all the way to Hong Kong.
When our greasy oil rigs
bow to their redneck kings,
fifty pound notes as confetti,
pound coin eternity rings.
How long before
enough is enough,
we take to the streets
and take them all back?
Harry Gallagher
