Something smaller now,
a thing scurrying in the shadows
of the American predator.
Red double-decker buses, faces corpse-like
in white soul-less light lit
only by CCTV cameras
everywhere.
Kipling´s thugs
with golden tounges in India
are here, in London, and have no golden tounge
no more
while real soldiers in Afghanistan
leaden their souls
with killing yet another tribesman
who never left his province
and never learned to read.
More Oscar Wildes are needed now,
but they don´t last long:
his own genius and wit
was hounded to death
by the crippled ones, those
who can´t stand that others
are smarter than themselves.
In the street
up from Charing Cross Station
towards Leicester Square
stands (lies) a statue to him:
Oscar´s face in woven bronze
over a black marble coffin bench.
You can sit here, talk to him
for a while. His hand, there
by the face, is made to hold
a cigarette
sometimes a fresh one
is put in place, or flowers
but few in England sit down
and talk to
Oscar Wilde anymore.
Daniel Skyle © 2010
