Echoes Underground
Welfare cheques from the welfare state. A vote’s as good
As any. I shall wait around all day, for the post.
And when I walk, under my hood I smile. A tired smile.
(And when the post comes, then I shall laugh.)
I see more rats than ever. (Myself included.) I think I’m going bald.
The girl around the corner almost smiled at me.
All I hear at night is shouting, deranged and broken.
(A rat scurries around my bare feet.)
—In the tunnels there’s never any room […]
Nor once they have passed either—
I should sooner fall on my sword than speak my mind.
Sleeping tarmac, yawning alloys, dreaming concrete corridors—
The preacher says the end is not nigh: Eschaton Averted.
(—Nay: I shall expedite its coming.!.—)
