It’s .. trying to construct
a society around production
for need .. not .. for profit –
.. meeting people’s needs ..
I half-quote Tony Benn

Once I was in his audience
whilst back home
my father rebuffed
Wedgie-bloody-Benn with

his gruff-spoken shun
’bout the Leftie-in-a-suit –
Benn spoke without limits
at the Co-operative Hall

way back in the slush-grey
twentieth century
of do-not-touch candles
and knitted gloves

in an endless civil war
of fists and banners
across flattened battlefields
far removed from us

Face-to-face politic
was the free-to-use fuel
against factory shut-downs
and mounting job losses

.. (Thatcher) did make war
on a lot of people in Britain,
and I don’t think it helped
our society ..

Now we trade insults
over sofa-space distances –
a hate we would not dare
to excrete out there in public –

no loud enough complaints
about neighbours’
ached-stomachs
with day-end hunger –

not of zero-hour contracts
worth near to nothing –
or the basic provisions
of dignity and stability

Instead we lament
the kiss of a celebrity –
caught on camera –
going viral like herpes

This land is cut open
under smartphone blades –
those knives blunt voices
which once were our aides