We walked in sporadic turns and weaves through mist and sun and shade and leaves beneath the crescent moon over water placid and we so hopeful with heads of acid and then the world shook.

It was no longer a fixed verse sort of world, where, the tallest gets the pear perched on the tree and shares it with me and the naive succeed and the evil deeds go punished and purged and smiles are churned no matter what.
No.
It was a horrible loud and ugly fire in which babies were burned and tricks were turned by brutes in suits and guns were sold to kill he who will try and kill you but that won’t do says the smirking salesman with his fuck-off rail-gun no he says kill him before he can think about killing you and so there’s war and every nation is a whore bitch-fucked and sodomized in a zoo by the glassy eyes of bankers in suits, just like the brutes, and we’re led by their flutes into the mountain of ignorance and work and cities which we build out of pity for their fancy cars as they drive along to their fancy bars and we starve.

Oh the world shook.
And all we had to hold onto was the very moulded roads we built in guilt for the SUVs of the VIPs with their I cut down trees sort of smiles and on these roads four groups sat beguiled in the tank which was yet to burst and flank us with hurt and all of this enlightenment and it would frightened us and we’d be fucked then says the economist.

First were Mexicans, standing with their bikes next to them and they were mad at the planet because we were not Hispanic like them and they scoffed at the Why can’t we all just get along kid on crazy naive TV which he doesn’t say for free because he’s an advertisement on MTV and money-hungry like the rest of us and the Mexicans said next to us we got the second group a dancing and a leaping and a prancing and a not giving the slightest that they are the whitest and clearly not the brightest and the Mexicans divided them with a barricade of bikes and the group with their Nikes kept jumping and tossing something and caring about nothing. These were the kids who major Tom would run over in his big cock-of-death tank and they’d never have a chance because they just want to dance but dancing won’t help in the self-defence against those Japs says Major Tom with his Betty-boo Tatts and neck-fat.

Little scum-sucking gang-banging bottle-breaking mischief-making I don’t give two shits about who you are toy soldiers I’ll still throw boulders even though you’re older sort of guys with youthful eyes sat in the next group like a vicious troupe of fighters and judges and juries and the furies which they sloshed about like a fat kids stout schoolbag were poured all over the street at the passer-bys feet and nobody wanted to walk on it and there was nasty chalk on it saying if you do walk on it you’re a dead man and the moon was still placid and our heads still brimmed with acid and so we kept going and saw the last blast of people and they were a dark percussion section following no particular direction with their coat-tails and Abigails and Henrys and I’m richer than you but what am I gonna do I still want to be cool so I ditch school and play guitar and go too far with drugs and thugs who dad said to stay away from but I come anyway to stay at this junction and I could function but I won’t sort of attitude.

And we came to realise that under this awful sky these were being fooled like everyone else because everyone felt at this awful place of segregation and separation that to survive one had to deny all others but their small circle of trust and leave all others in the dust begging for help because they were someone else so they could roll on the floor broken and torn and we’d say sorry brother but you’re another kind from me.

And we were eating our stamps like tramps because that was what we were, the miss-matched out of bed-head better off dead tablet-chomping zombies and we were classed and tagged and branded like every other face at that awful place and we were walking the roads like all the others drones and thought we should go because we shared in that feeling of isolation and discrimination and we didn’t see the same eyes as our own in a face but every trace of difference in the place and there was a lot of it and the earth still shook.

The worst thing was and we all felt it and smelt it and couldn’t very well deny it and couldn’t do a thing to try and stop it and that whatever way we grouped and sided and never collided with the Mexicans or mavericks or dancers or side-burned rich romancers and whatever we said to the man, that god-awful man who rapes every single deed and clan and whatever we did or we do, it was him who shook us with his tie and briefcase and no face.
Yes, the worst thing was we would never be the shakers,
and always be the shaken.