Poem: Guilty generation

Guilty generation

There is oil on the streets tonight, oil! It only takes a spark to ignite;
the streets are flammable! Ram raid a van into a wall, wait nervously
for its fuel tank to blow. Spread fire and build barricades on streets
giddily lit by flames as lines of blue lights flash on distant riot shields.
Scaffold poles to smash up shops and passers-by, the sensation of feet
crunching glass, the shells of cars burnt to paintless, tyreless shapes,
the cheering as TVs, gangster chic and dangerware - free shit -
are pillaged. Get free stuff, fuck the system, rip the feds, in a festival
of illegal consumption, a violent Olympiad of lawlessness.
London is burning with more than boredom now. The streets
of London are filled with rubble, ancient footprints are everywhere.
You could almost think that you’re seeing double on a hot, bright night
in Peckham Rye witnessing the decline and fall of the Western world!

The sneer of a wealthy diner from the safe side of a restaurant window
is observed by a young rioter who sees in this look all he is personally denied.
One kick from a boot shatters the glass divide and replaces the sneer
with a look of fear. The thin film between rich and poor has been torched tonight
as night-time riots follow daylight robbery by wealthy elites.
Traders and bankers socialise risk and privatise profits
while trousering bonuses which exceed lifetime average salaries.
MPs fiddle expenses, police take backhanders as journalists hack phones for profit.
Public discourse sneers in a celebrity-obsessed media,
cynical and contemptuous of old values. Mutual assistance abandoned
in favour of solipsistic entrepreneurship, as community is cut
from the big broken society. The already rich at the forefront of the charge
to grab what you can while you can, now the good times are over.

From Salford to Pembury, from the City to Westminster
fear and greed roam unchecked without bothering to mask their faces;
generational fear and loathing increases now the old have power,
money, votes and demographics on their side. A generation is lost -
brooding, disoriented, suspicious - bearing the imprint of a consumer culture
determining ideas of status and achievement. A generation which pays
for the financiers’ calamity while their elders, who have taken early retirement
with generous pension packages and the proceeds of property booms,
spend liberally on their own pleasure and leisure. A generation whose basic desires
for stable jobs and secure homes will be hit hard by a triple whammy
of climate change combined with the loss of cheap fuel and credit.
A generation with a shared sense of deprivation, seeing a democracy deficit
and experiencing a collapse in the authority of traditional institutions.
If it is a crime to live without hope or meaning, then, yes, this generation is guilty.

(This poem has been collaged primarily from phrases and images used in articles published in the Observer - 14/08/11 - and the Guardian - 13/08/11, 15/08/11, 18/08/11 and 20/08/11)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Jam - Down In The Tube Station At Midnight.