Empire fade away

History is not a book we close; it is a pulse we inherit. In 'Empire Fade Away,' the 'Son of a Slave’s Grandchild' navigates the wreckage of a dread empire that loved the pageantry of his heritage but spat at the reality of his skin. This is the industrial archaeology of the soul—a reclamation of worth from the 'mouldy hops' of a ghettoised past and the 'air-kissed' neuroses of a gentrified present.

Empire fade away

I am the son of a slave’s grandchild

born into a hue of controversy and disdain.

Home is a dread empire’s shell and worth is the

crumbs of a lowly.

Pain is the chill of a winter eve upon a grave of the

long forgotten. Dressed in faded pastel plastic

flowers, dead lips whisper that which nobody

comes to hear. Bones dry and bleached as noon

upon a pave are trampled as they merge with

paths covered in snow and driven litter. Upon the

hallow soil, toils of many a man’s sweat and life

fall upon a country’s sword as nuts cast from

branches reach an unavoidable floor.

What worth has the tepid water for stewing?

The engine runs on tea and curse words lovingly

exchanged with familiar arrogances, dressed in

Sarcasm’s passive aggressive duplicity.

Oh Empire!, we loved you before you spat at us.

We the exotic,

of sheens long tarnished by familiarity

and its all-incumbent indignations. The colony in

the mind is imitated in edifices, reflected in

passion for pomp and pageantry. Square jaws and

stiff shoulders, mantled in red, boys roused by

glories sung in times of pride.

I am the son of a slave’s grandchild

born into a hue of controversy and disdain.

Unrecorded histories in streets, trade and sweet

undercurrents of musk and sweat. Crawling

creatures’s lusts are sucked from the loins of

masculinity. Prayers to sins, iniquities brought

before the magistrate, appraised before the saluter

of an expectation. It will all end bad and cause a

stink when you hear of them eating us in our

sleep. Puss and vomit in the pews amongst the

likeminded, as they chide their councillors over

tea and sandwiches. Sour words tell of the

attitude, it was better back in our day! Though in

whispered mordacity that it was less dark both in

weather and in complexion.

What worth has the mouldy hop for brewing?

Shades in corners of shadow from lips of scorn plot.

The contrite and conceited foul communities’s

efforts, so the neighbour remembers to hate with

fear that he cannot rationalise but fells

in the words of a carouser.

We hear the scorn of

liberalised ideals that stoke the device named

ignorance. The able purchase their means of

security; and secure in towers of empathy, pretend

to care nothing for the differences that we are and

how all friends come from afar.

I am the son of a slave’s grandchild

born into a hue of controversy and disdain.

Home I new is now a ghetto of wealth, cleansed of the

living

breathing melting and spiritual thriving.

Oneupmanship paid by postcodes and off street

parking. Pretty boutiques selling trivial trinkets

for the materially exhausted and ever wanting.

Colour wears extensions and morns the loss of

Europe.

Air kissed greetings and exchanged coded credentials,

into clubs of twittering neuroses and wordy

sounding lunches on menus bigger than plates

tipped in accordance.

I am the son of a slave’s grandchild

born into a hue of controversy and I grew out of the

colony.

It is an empire faded away.

We grew out of the colony, but the 'Faded Pastel Plastic Flowers' still whisper on the graves of the long forgotten. To find our sovereignty, we must recognize that the 'Red Mantle' of the past was never meant to fit us. By acknowledging the 'Hue of Controversy' we were born into, we finally earn the right to turn our backs on the 'Empire Fade Away' and build a fortress that is truly our own.