GENERATION EXIT WOUND

Speaking of things about which I know nothing
Speaking a language I can't comprehend

People moving like grounded balloons
lives bloated on emptiness

And the worst part is they're winning
No the worst part is they've won

They are happy
or at least not unhappy

You will not see them staring in hollow horrified bewilderment at the evening news

You will not hear them lamenting the state of the world and their own disenfranchisement

They are the future
the acceptant face of a tomorrow we did not buy

They will not mind too much when they find out
that they won't really inherit the Earth

They will not question and they will be trusting enough to take such answers as they are given at face value

They will be innocent and enjoy the simple things in life like beer and TV shows and sex

They will reproduce
They will be good citizens and creators of good citizens

They are the next wave
They are shining obedient marching evolution

This is Newspeak
We are the dead

ENGLISH SUMMER

the smell of spoilt fruit and veg
after the market's cleared away; sweat-stained vests, scorched lawns,
sunburnt shoulders; hosepipe bans [even though the river
burst its banks in May and flooded the town]; punch-ups, anti-clamactic, on sweating pavements outside pubs at kicking-out time; baked air on empty buses winding
through quiet, odd-named villages; the noise of televisions, turned up loud for deaf pensioners, spilling out of opened windows
of terraced houses; Henman not winning Wimbledon again; the sweet-dust smell when it rains
after a hot, dry spell, and the way it feels like a world that's been holding its breath has finally exhaled; cars, bumper-to-bumper on motorways,
headed for the coast, tyres all black
and new-looking with melted tar;
ice cream vans stopped on housing estates,
by kids with bikes and homes with hanging baskets; smoke hanging on warm evening air; the heat that hits you
when you open the door of a car
parked in the sun all day; school exams in stifling halls; yellow fields sighing pollen into the air to play
havoc with sinuses;

mosquitoes hovering over ponds and streams,
and bats swooping from under bridges at dusk; music from stereos drifting over garden fences; tractors crawling along country roads
too narrow to overtake on; the way summer now is never as long or as hot
as the ones you remember.

I've known 82 seasons
across a kaleidoscope of nations [some left more of a mark than others], but this has always been the realest for me.
Perhaps that's because I somehow always knew
that somewhere
in an English summer that hadn't happened yet,
out of sight behind hazy horizons of growing up,
you were waiting.