Flowers (1994)

From the December 1994 issue of the Socialist Standard

Don’t lay flowers for rebels who failed
as if sunburst days are spent,
or let your greying hair steal
breath from your impossible dreams,
too many wreaths have been
hung at doors
of the drab remains who’ve
ploughed barren soil,
crop after crop of young corn
shrivels and dies
trampled underfoot,
bloodstained, murdered.
You are too young to place faith
in those tumbling, tarnished statues,
reach out and disembowel the ghosts
who cast long shadows from the past,
lower the caskets of disarmed prophets
into their dark resting places,
turn out, tune — in and turn up the volume
on this low fidelity system. 

Don’t lay flowers for rebels who failed
as if sunburst days are spent.