Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
When the Pilrig Church Clock Strikes 13
by Mike Cowley

As Pete Shelley sang, Boredom 
is counter-revolutionary. 
Run, Leithers! The old world is behind you!

Expel the policeman from your head.
All power to the Imagination!
The landlords are homeless.
The bankers’ laments are derivative 
of songs whose time has run out.
The corporate lawyers plead guilty 
on behalf of their clients.
We are realists. We only demand the Impossible!
We will organise sit-ins in your souls, occupations 
in the margins of your ledgers.

When the last neoliberal is strangled with the last copy of the Daily Mail
When the Granton campus dreamers twin with Gaza’s colonised streets
When the last establishment entryist is exposed
When the spectacle’s final reel unspools in nude ignominy 
the noonday underground will emerge from its slumbers.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
21st Century Poetry / 29 July 2026
29 July 2026

by Mary Gilonne

21st Century Poetry / 24 July 2026
24 July 2026

by Alistair Findlay

21st Century Poetry / 8 July 2026
8 July 2026

by Rosie Jackson

21st Century Poetry / 26 November 2025
26 November 2025

by Christopher Norris