We ride a cosmopolitan storm, a double-decker chaos.

We ride an empire

under the threat of revenge.

Black faces look

and hold secrets

of the coming apocalypse. Shhh.

Don’t tell the queen. Don’t let

Number 10 in on this. Mop your floors,

as though you had resigned to fate. Turn

the other cheek. Allow the old to shit

all over you, as though it were a privilege.

Until the time shall come –

and soon is – when the empire will

expire. Then we shall rename Buckingham Palace,

dredge the Thames to the Atlantic,

so the bones of the Chained

shall clasp the souls of the Owners.

We shall teach taxi-meters

to measure the sins of Homo Superiors

and count the bound cries

of sub-men;

tutor the buses to stop

at each ancient landmark scattered

between Zanzibar and here;

reconfigure coin slots

to spit out words like nigger.

Shhh. Don’t tell the queen.