Still Dreaming

I wish I was where I was when I woke

I was born in an old curiosity shop 
down by the river
razed by the city down to the ground 
now there’s a wasteland 
with our names buried under it 
where the rich get to play 
and shit on the graves
of our childhood


They say money can’t buy you love 
but it buys them the sky
the river and the light 
The right to take every dream 
and crush it, it seems
any old time that they want to


Once the river was a ghetto 
poor tumble down tenements 
they came took our homes, our jobs
and our pride and left us 
poor bodies, adrift in the tide 
Now it’s a playground lit by nightlife 
for vacant landlords, purveyors of poverty
and those already dead inside


oysters and beef suet the poor people’s diet 
now they live shackled 
closed boxes~closed minds 
bar coded~priced into servitude 
where no river runs, no sky beckons 
no mudlarks search 
for that one golden nugget 
where to find solace 
when you’re stripped naked 
a carcass hung for the market


the olde curiosity shop 
lies empty and broken 
the tide turned and washed us away 
in a whirlpool of gluttony 
and a riptide of greed
condemning us to exile and history 


But the river never forgets
lying unbroken beneath 
blue surburban skies
It lives in our blood 
flows under our skin
our tongues can still taste 
the brine of it’s wandering 


I wish I was where I was when I woke
beside my old river running 
down to the sea

blue skies way up above me 
still young and in love
and dreaming of thee


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Photo by Toxic Smoker on Unsplash

thanks for reading, Sea 🙏