This is a testimony from 2016

This is a testimony from 2016.

This is for future generations.

Just so they know why

The year was so historically shit.

A lot of people died in the streets of Aleppo

A lot of people waited on shores and in camps

Abandoned alone contactless

And I am not talking about the credit card.

But this is not what was relevant.

To explain what happened in the rich west -

It was not bombs and it was not plagues.

But a lot of very important people died.

Good men. Good women.

And they did great things.

And we were sad to see greatness crushed.

And we in the rich West felt unsafe

When these idols died – gentle figures

Who kept us together.

Cohen and Bowie cherished through the ages.

Peace love and a bit of rebel spirit.

And rising out of its ashes

Were divisive suit wearing devils

With flapping mouths

And gnashing teeth

Three headed Cerberus

Farage and Trump and [insert].

As the UK floated cordless away

From post-war security

A hangover of world war anxiety

We weren’t ready to fly into the

Howling mouths of Reality

The gentle liberals of the new age

Cried in the corners of dusty libraries

As powerless they were

Forced to dress

in their grandparent’s dusty blackshirts

looking into the mirror

tunnels into the light

facing the piles of riches

they took, which came from

every petition they clicked on facebook

Against.

In 2016 we fought ourselves

And the monster inside.

More traumatic than the enemy

Or the three headed dog

To know we were puppets

Dancing ghoulishly on strings

And also the puppeteers.

The US of A

breakfasted on the Disney illusion

for almost a centennary

And it finally revealed itself to them

The monster so lovingly maligned

Sheer Kahn, Jafar, Scar & The Beast

Something like a hallucinogenic

So insanely beyond the American Dream

That it gives you a hard on.

The LSD trips we lost post 1960’s

In the hard cold war paranoia

That still exists.

And all those

Who just wanted a better life

Butter on their toast

Egyptian cotton sheets

Cannot hide under the blanket

And they choke on their bread

But still turn off the TV

When they see the bombs

Fall on hot foreign streets

And hum mindlessly

As they help out

the local soup kitchen

And as they quietly do their tax returns

They see the little shaves in the Kitty

Here and there

And worry about little Johnny

Who has finished his expensive education

But sits in his house

Elbows in rollies and marijuana

Dreaming of other things

As he fills out yet another form.

This is 2016

In the rich west

We suffer

Because we have it all

And we have nothing

And none of us can see

Which is the monster.

And all we have to blame

Is each other.

This is a testimony of why 2016

Was so terrible.