In every street, the green leaf blooms where once the blacksmith stood his ground,
Now glassy dens with listless eyes in every town and shire are found.
They trade not arms nor ancient wares, but vapours sweet and dreams half-formed,
And youth, like flocks to lotus fields, drift in where once the hearthfire warmed.
No senate speaks of homes or hearths, of barns or ships or steepled pride,
They whisper soft of "mental peace" while watching nations slip and slide.
Not lions roar, nor chariots race, but soothing haze and idle hands,
The circus lives in digital glow across the frost-bit maple lands.
While bridges crack and hospitals groan, the leaders praise their clever cure,
A plant, a puff, a passive crowd, subdued and slow, politely poor.
No bread, but chips; no games, but haze, this is the modern Roman trick,
To daze the masses just enough, so they forget the house won’t stick.
They named it freedom, taxed it clean, and wrapped it in the Charter's gold,
But freedom tastes of soot and sleep when bought and sold in glassy fold.
The poor are first to find escape, not up, but down through hazy mist,
For every weed-shop lights the way where hope and will no longer twist.
And councils smile at profits made while cities rot beneath their feet,
What need for justice, law, or truth, when everyone’s too dazed to greet?
The voices once that rang with pride, of mount and field and sacred kin,
Now mumble soft through clouds of green and sleep through all that burns within.
No call to march, no vote to cast, no cry to right the broken stone,
Just music, memes, and mellow fog where passion once stood proud, alone.
The barns collapse, the streets decay, the hearths grow cold, the flags lie torn,
And none remember how to rise, or curse the day they were thus born.
Behold the halls of Parliament, now circled not with sword or fire,
But drugged applause and vacant nods from crowds who ask for nothing higher.
The emperor wears a modern suit and smiles with polls and graphs well-fed,
While fentanyl and cannabis fight for the souls of sons half-dead.
And every puff a price is paid: the cost of care, the weight of fight,
For while the state gives fog and calm, it hides the ruin from the light.
Yet somewhere deep in cedar groves, a voice remains beyond the leaf,
That calls to minds too long subdued, and wakes in hearts the old belief.
The land remembers, roots still writhe where tribes and banners made their stand,
And when the smoke at last is cleared, the ghosts shall rise to take this land.
So let them sell the haze and hush, the fire will come when truth returns,
And from the ash, the souls once dulled shall light again the forge that burns.
(By John Shenton)