Generation Gap

There will be rust and bricks for all.

All art will cease to matter.

Taking offence will be a virtue.

We’ll stand beside the smashed glass front

of England’s last remaining High Street shop

and smile like idiots whose senseless adoration of the ego

is captured in an endless rash of selfies.

Of course I’d love to see another photo of

you looking studied, you fascinating child.

There will be bones and phlegm for all.

The virtue of the stupid

will be the latest must-have fashion item.

Love will be redacted from all novels, plays and poems,

and nobody will notice.

We’ll paint this land with blood and concrete;

half-sing its  National Anthem,

with flecks of spit, sandpapered fists, and bloodshot eyes.

As eloquent as like, whatever.

There will be petty cash and canned laughter for all.

Monochrome will be the new black.

Lack of self-awareness will be the new black.

And while we wait,

the ironed-on expressions of the surgically-enhanced

will provide a message for the world,

for those who care to read it.

Our best intentions will mean nothing in the end.

That wasn’t it.